The Urban Growth Centres. Golden Horseshoe: Lessons from Downtowns, Nodes, and CorridorS NEPTIS STUDIES ON THE TORONTO METROPOLITAN REGION MAY 2007

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1 NEPTIS STUDIES ON THE TORONTO METROPOLITAN REGION The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe: Lessons from Downtowns, Nodes, and CorridorS MAY 27 Pierre Filion Professor School of Planning University of Waterloo

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3 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe: Lessons from Downtowns, Nodes, and Corridors Pierre Filion Neptis is an independent Canadian foundation that conducts and publishes nonpartisan research on the past, present and futures of urban regions. By contributing reliable information, expert analysis and fresh policy ideas, Neptis seeks to inform and catalyze debate and decision-making on regional urban development. NEPTIS FOUNDATION 5 Park Road Toronto, Ontario M4W 2N Neptis Foundation N E P T I S The Architecture of Urban Regions

4 Copyright 27 Neptis Foundation Electronic edition First Impression Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Filion, Pierre, 1952 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the greater golden horseshoe : lessons from downtowns, nodes, and corridors / report prepared for the Neptis Foundation by Pierre Filion. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print format. 1. City planning Ontario, South Central. 2. Cities and towns Ontario, South Central Growth. 3. Regional planning Ontario, South Central. I. Neptis Foundation II. Title. HT178.C22O58 27a 37.1' C X All maps were created by Jo Ashley, Marcy Burchfield, and Byron Moldofsky of the Cartography Office, Department of Geography, University of Toronto. Research assistant: Kristina la Fleur Cover images, top to bottom: Downtown Toronto Queen Street between Victoria and Yonge, looking west; Yonge-Eglinton Node; Downtown Oakville; and the future site of Vaughan Corporate Centre. All photographs in the document were taken by Pierre Filion and Zack Taylor. The author gratefully acknowledges the comments of seven anonymous reviewers. The author can be contacted by at pfilion@fes.uwaterloo.ca

5 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Table of Contents Summary 1 Introduction 3 Part 1: The formulation of the nodal concept in Toronto 5 Antecedents of the nodal policy 6 The Metro Toronto sub-centre policy 12 The OGTA nodal policy 15 The uneven success of nodes 2 Corridors: an overlooked element 2 Smart Growth and Places to Grow 22 Why nodes? 29 Why not corridors? 31 Planning coordination and capacity issues 31 Part 2: The evolution and present condition of downtowns, nodes, and corridors 36 Selection of study areas 36 Objectives and criteria 39 Method 4 Demographic changes 41 Socioeconomic profiles 42 Employment trends 52 Retailing Trends 58 Density 59 Built environment 62 Travel patterns 76 Conclusion 86 Part 3: Policy options 88 Coordinated multi-scale planning 88 The diversity of Urban Growth Centres 93 Counteracting the dispersion of activities 98 References 11 Appendix A: Study area boundary maps 17 Appendix B: Defining the boundaries of the study areas 119 Appendix C: Study area land use maps 122 Appendix D: Patterns of travel to study areas 133

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7 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe vii List of Tables Table 1: The evolution of the nodal concept in the Greater Toronto Area 33 Table 2: Evolution of institutional structures 35 Table 3: Categories of Urban Growth Centres (and Corridors) 37 Table 4: Population and dwelling changes in the study areas, Table 5: Average and median income of individuals and households living in the study areas and their urban zone and municipalities, and ratios of study area values relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities 43 Table 6: Highest level of education of residents, study areas and their urban zone, and ratios of study area percentages relative to those of their urban zone 45 Table 7: Per cent residents of study areas and their urban zone and municipalities according to occupation, and ratios of study area percentages relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities 46 Table 8: Per cent of residents of study areas and their urban zone and municipalities who are nonimmigrants and immigrants, and ratios of study area percentages relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities 47 Table 9: Household size and per cent of residents in study areas and their urban zone and municipalities in different gender and age groups, and ratios of study area values relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities 49 Table 1: Study area scores on different socioeconomic variables relative to each other 5 Table 11: Evolution of office space in the GTMA, downtown Toronto, and nodes, 197 to Table 12: Employment by occupation in workplaces located in the study areas 57 Table 13: Population, dwellings, and employment density, study areas and two suburban business parks 6 Table 14: Per cent dwelling types in study areas and their respective urban zone or municipality, and ratios of study area proportions relative to those of their urban zone or municipality 63 Table 15: Measurements of the built environment in investigated downtowns and nodes 72 Table 16: Per cent modal shares of all trips with destinations in study areas, in their respective urban zone or municipality and in two business parks, and ratios of study area shares relative to those of their urban zone or municipality 77 Table 17: Per cent modal shares of home-based trips of residents from study areas and their respective urban zone or municipality, and ratios of study area shares relative to those of their urban zone or municipality 8 Table 18: Per cent modal shares of work-bound trips of residents from study areas and their respective urban zone or municipality, and ratios of study area shares relative to those of their urban zone or municipality 82 Table 19: Average distances of trips to destinations in study areas 83 Table 2: Office workers use of restaurants in their node (twice a week or more), North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre 85 Table 21: Percentage of total non-food shopping carried out by office workers in their node, North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre 85 Table 22: Per cent modal shares for trips within nodes, North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre 85

8 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe viii List of Maps Map 1: The hierarchy of centres in the MTARTS study, Map 2: Centres designated in the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto s 1981 Plan 14 Map 3: Urban Growth Centres designated in Places to Grow 27 Map 4: Locations of study sites in the Greater Golden Horseshoe 38 Map 5: Major office floor space constructed (buildings less than 1,m 2 ) 55 Map 6: Major office floor space constructed (buildings more than 1,m 2 ) 55

9 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe 1 Summary The Ontario government s recent planning initiative, titled Places to Grow, is intended to promote higher-density development, a lower rate of urban land absorption, and increased public transit use in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH), an extended area centred on Toronto. The designation of 24 Urban Growth Centres (UGCs) is a major plank of this strategy. The centres are defined as mixed-use, high-density, and public-transit oriented developments, which are meant to become focal points within the GGH. It is in UGCs, therefore, that one would expect land use formulas that promote intensification and public-transit use objectives to be deployed to the fullest extent. This report recommends measures to help establish and develop UGCs and ensure that they meet their planning objectives. To this end, it begins by reviewing the history of nodal planning in the Toronto region, a history that dates back to the 195s. This history reveals a persistent interest in this form of development, as well as, to a lesser extent, in corridors. This interest, however, far outstrips the actual creation of nodes and corridors. Of the numerous nodes that have been designated by various planning agencies, only a few have taken shape and only four have achieved substantial levels of development. The report also analyses several study areas downtowns and nodes that are included within the UGC strategy as well as two transit corridors. The survey looks at the density, land use, travel patterns, employment trends, and demographic changes of the study areas, and the socioeconomic profile of their residents. It highlights the achievements of these existing high-density and mixed-use areas, as well as the difficulties they confront. The study of existing downtowns, nodes, and corridors demonstrates the possibility of achieving mixed-use and high-density nodal development in suburban settings. It also points to the ability of nodes to attract a mixture of jobs including many belonging to high-status occupations and large numbers of residents. The findings also underscore profound differences between study areas. For example, statistics on the socioeconomic status of residents reveal a divergence between a wealthier population living in inner-city study areas characterized by small households, high-status occupations, and high levels of educational attainment and the presence in the suburban study areas of poorer residents, larger households, lower-status occupations, and lower educational levels. The downtowns, nodes, and corridors selected for this study have all encountered problems in meeting certain planning objectives. One problem is the difficulty in attracting office employment during the last 15 years, an outcome of widespread deceleration in office growth and office developers preference for low-density suburban sites. Another difficulty, particularly noticeable in suburban nodes and small downtowns, is a high dependence on the automobile at the expense of public transit use and walking. This problem is associated with an urban form primarily

10 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe 2 tailored to the automobile and ill-suited to walking. In these circumstances, it is difficult to achieve inter-functional synergy that is, a situation in which certain activities benefit from the presence of nearby complementary functions. The lack of frequent or convenient public transit services between many of the nodes and their catchment areas is also responsible for a high reliance on the car for journeys to and from these nodes. The last part of the report draws on this information to make the following recommendations, which are intended to foster the development of UGCs and help them meet their mixed-use, intensification, and transportation goals: 1. The planning of UGCs should be closely coordinated to ensure consistency at the macro scale (the role of UGCs at the metropolitan level), meso scale (relations between UGCs and their catchment areas), and micro scale (the layout and design of UGCs). Such an approach would ensure that efforts at all scales of planning contribute to the further development of UGCs and the achievement of their planning goals. The report acknowledges anticipated difficulties in securing collaboration on these matters, given the different jurisdictions responsible for different planning scales. 2. Attention should be given to the different nature of the areas intended to become cores of UGCs, or part of these cores: nodes that are the outcome of urban redevelopment; existing suburban nodes originally developed on greenfield sites; future suburban nodes to be erected on greenfield sites; traditional downtowns of suburban municipalities within, or close to, the Toronto urban perimeter; and the downtowns of self-standing urban areas within the GGH. Each category requires a specific planning treatment, ruling out a one-size-fits-all approach to the planning of UGCs. 3. Measures should be taken to direct new office buildings to areas (such as downtowns, nodes, and corridors) well served by transit services. Such an office location policy would counter the present trend towards dispersed suburban office locations, which is a major factor in the increasing reliance on the car for commuting. It would also favour downtowns, nodes, and corridors (and by extension, the core areas of UGCs), where office space is important to their public transit orientation and (along with retailing, hospitality, housing, cultural amenities, public-sector services, and other activities) to their mixed-use character.

11 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe 3 Introduction There are different ways to increase urban density and promote public transit use and walking. One is by setting limits on the urban envelope; another is by encouraging intensification wherever there is land available within urbanized areas and where low-density uses can be redeveloped. This report focuses on approaches intended to maximize the impact of such interventions by concentrating them in strategically located areas. The choice of intensification approaches analyzed in this study the development of nodes and corridors and downtown revitalization is dictated by the strategies adopted in the Ontario Places to Grow planning exercise. This report explores ways to promote the success of the Urban Growth Centre strategy, a major plank of Places to Grow, the Ontario government s current approach to planning the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Urban Growth Centres are intended to concentrate development in high-density, mixed-use districts, conducive to walking and public-transit use, and thereby to contribute to the overall goal of raising densities throughout the region and lessening both dependence on the automobile and the amount of land absorbed by urbanization. The proposals in this report are grounded in a review of the evolution of the concepts of nodes and corridors in the history of planning in Toronto and its metropolitan region since the 195s. The historical narrative exposes difficulties in implementing the concept, as demonstrated by a wide gap between the numerous nodes designated in various planning documents and the relatively small number of existing nodes. The report s proposals are also based on an analysis of a selection of downtowns and nodes, chosen to represent the different categories of proposed UGCs, as well as of high-density public transit corridors, another plank of the Places to Grow strategy. The analysis points to a few success stories in launching nodes, attracting different types of activities to them, and achieving population growth in highdensity residential developments. However, even the minority of nodes that have achieved a substantial level of development face difficulties in meeting some of their planning objectives. Among other things, the low rate of office space growth over the last 15 years impedes multi-functionality. Other difficulties stem from the way in which many suburban nodes remain oriented towards the automobile, which discourages walking and limits synergistic effects between nearby activities. Relatively low public transit use is another problem that is especially noticeable in suburban nodes and small downtowns. The planning shortcomings identified in nodes are also seen in the corridors investigated in this report. The report is structured in three parts. Part 1 narrates the development of the concepts of nodes and corridors within the context of Toronto planning. Part 2 describes the present state of the study areas, focusing on their density, land use, travel patterns, employment, and demographic and socioeconomic features. Part

12 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe 4 3 draws out the implications of the findings of the two previous parts of the report for the future UGC policy. The report has two closely related purposes. One is to assess the performance of downtowns, nodes, and corridors in light of the objectives of Places to Grow. The historical material explains the circumstances responsible for the uneven development and current condition of the three categories of study areas. Lessons from the evolution and present performance of study areas inform recommended improvements to policies aiming at intensification, multi-functionality, and reduced automobile use.

13 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 5 Part 1: The formulation of the nodal concept in Toronto Planning agencies have long placed considerable faith in the capacity of nodes to turn around sprawling development. This section examines the circumstances that gave rise to the nodal concept, and that account for its evolution and the way in which it has been implemented in the Greater Toronto Area. Because of its prominence among planning objectives formulated since the early 198s and its importance in present provincial planning strategies, it is critical to understand this concept and its permutations within the Toronto region, as well as the implementation difficulties and the partial achievement of objectives related to nodes. The information in this section comes mostly from planning documents, but other sources (such as newspaper articles or real estate and census data) also shed light on the achievement of nodal objectives set out in planning documents. The historical narrative illustrates the variations in purposes assigned to nodes according to the period and the level of government involved. Nodes were once seen as ways to provide a market to a new subway system, decentralize office development, and relieve what was perceived to be an over-congested downtown, but gradually they came to be seen as agents of suburban intensification, sprawl containment, and the promotion of walking and transit use. The historical narrative helps explain why the nodal concept has received so much attention, often at the expense of other approaches to metropolitan planning, such as transit- and pedestrian-oriented, high-density corridors. A nodal strategy is less likely to raise opposition than other approaches to metropolitan-level planning, because it minimizes reliance on coercion and the potential for NIMBYist reactions. The popularity of the concept also stems from the benefits that nodes promise for different levels of government. While Metro Toronto and the provincial government have seen nodes as instruments of metropolitan region planning, municipal administrations have seen them as symbolic centres and lures for types of employment that might not otherwise come to the municipality. The history of nodes also brings to light problems with this type of development. There is the difficulty of coordinating planning at different levels to meet the transit and pedestrian objectives of nodes. There are also difficulties in establishing new nodes. The intense interest in nodes manifested by planning agencies and expressed in planning documents has rarely resulted in the actual development of nodes. After more than 25 years of planning nodes, only three large suburban nodes have been created in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The fourth node studied, Yonge- Eglinton, is smaller than the other three and is located in the inner city. The history of nodes demonstrates a need for distinct approaches suited to the various types of nodes identified in recent documents: the traditional downtowns of self-standing cities; the traditional downtowns of cities within, or about to be absorbed by, the built perimeter of Toronto; older nodes that are the outcome

14 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 6 of redevelopment around subway stations in the old City of Toronto; 1 existing suburban mixed-use centres; and projected suburban mixed-use centres. The need for multi-faceted approaches to nodal planning is the object of the final, policyoriented part of the report. While Part 1 touches on the consequences of certain events on the evolution of nodes and the achievement of their planning objectives, Part 2 offers a more detailed and comprehensive assessment of their development and planning outcomes. Antecedents of the nodal policy Although nodes assumed prominence in Toronto as a metropolitan planning instrument in the late 197s, there were important antecedents to reliance in planning on density and mixed-use development. The box on pages 7 and 8 contains some definitions of nodes and their antecedents described in this section. Juxtaposing high-density residential development with retail As high-density, often high-rise, apartment buildings transformed the residential development scene from the late 195s, planners tried to link these structures to retail areas. This policy was adopted by Metro Toronto and its municipalities and spread throughout the metropolitan region. A testimony to the success of the policy is the proximity visible today between high-density residential and commercial areas, many of which are located at the intersections of arterial roads. The Toronto residential landscape, characterized by low-density neighbourhoods punctuated with pockets of high density, is in large part a legacy of this policy. The juxtaposition of residential density and retailing was intended to reduce residents reliance on driving for shopping, while making shopping more convenient for apartment residents and providing a nearby market for stores (Metro Toronto, 1966: 35; 1967: 14; 1979: 3; Scarborough, 1978). These principles still guide the location of high-density housing in suburbs currently undergoing development such as Oakville or Whitby (Oakville, 1991: 46; Whitby, 1999: 22-3). This juxtaposition, however, often failed to provide a pedestrian-friendly environment, because of the wide arterial roads and large expanses of surface parking encircling shopping malls. Still, pathways connecting residential to retail areas were sometimes added to provide facilities for pedestrians. Master-planned communities Suburban master-planned communities of the 195s, 196s, and 197s Don Mills, Bramalea, Erin Mills, and Meadowvale were structured around focal points, ranging in a hierarchy from convenience shopping at the local level to large (sometimes regional) malls surrounded with office space and high-density 1 The old City of Toronto refers to the central municipality of a two-tier regional government (the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, or Metro ) that existed before In that year, all five municipalities in Metro were amalgamated into a new municipality also called the City of Toronto.

15 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 7 Definitions of nodes and of their antecedents in Toronto Mid-196s, Meadowvale Development Plan: Meadowvale Centres The two centres are designed as shopping-commercial-entertainment-cultural complexes. They are intended to produce aesthetic marketplace environments that are not only efficient, but stimulating and uplifting. Higher-density housing located near the town centres will assure a lively atmosphere throughout the day and evening. (Markborough Properties, n.d.: 17). 1967, Metropolitan Toronto and Region Transportation Study (MTARTS): Sub-regional Centres These are the centres that functionally lie between the regional centre at downtown Toronto and the various categories of neighbourhood and community or town centres. In a complex of 6½ million people, they have a critical role to play. They are means of bringing closer to home the wide range of services marketing, government, community, social and recreational that require a service base that is greater than the 2 to 25, persons in 4 or 5 neighbourhoods served by a typical community centre, but not as great as the multi-million population of the regional centre that has both national and international roots (Ontario, 1967: 3). 1981, Metro Toronto Official Plan: Major Centres a) multi-functional in land use; b) compact and pedestrian oriented in their internal organization and design; c) intensive in their development relative to those areas which are not centres. Activities encouraged should include but not necessarily be limited to the following: retailing, offices, hotels, theatre, library, post offices, government and community activity while also serving as transportation hubs for local surface transit. (Metro Toronto, 1981: 22) 199, IBI Greater Toronto Area Urban Structure Concepts Study: Concept 3: Nodal An intermediate concept in which residential and employment growth occurs primarily in and around various existing communities in a compact form, resulting in reduced consumption of underdeveloped land relative to Concept 1. (IBI Group, 199c: 4) 1991, Office for the Greater Toronto Area, Report of the Provincial-Municipal Urban Form Working Group: Nodes A node is an area of concentrated activity serving as a community focal point and providing services or functions not normally found elsewhere in the community. To work well, everything in a node should be close to everything else. This helps promote a pedestrian oriented environment by ensuring walking distances to and from public transit are reasonable. Towards the edges of the nodes and corridors, densities would gradually decrease and give way to surrounding lower density areas, feeding into the transit system and other community services and facilities that will gradually develop. (OGTA, 1991: 19) 1991, North York Official Plan: City Centre It is the policy of Council to develop one major centre to function as the prime business, government and community focal point within North York. It is also intended to serve as the transportation hub for transit. This centre is to be multi-functional in land use, pedestrian oriented internally, and should include complementary recreational and residential uses. In general, it is intended to function as the city core or downtown for North York and function as a Metropolitan Major Centre. (North York, 1991: A-6) 1994, Town of Markham, Central Area Planning District Secondary Plan: Central Area Planning District The Central Area Planning District is planned as a mixed use, intensive urban area incorporating housing, employment and retail facilities, recreational, cultural, major institutional and civic buildings to serve as a focus for Markham s many communities. The District will be a major activity centre which will be transit supportive as well as attractive and comfortable for pedestrians and will integrate a high standard of urban design with existing natural features to create a unique destination. (Markham, 1994: 15)

16 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part , City of Mississauga, City Centre Secondary Plan: City Centre Goal: Develop a strong mixed-use centre that will be a regional focal point and give a distinct identity to Mississauga. Objectives: To provide an area of appropriate size and location for the principal focal point of retail, office, cultural, and civic facilities. To provide opportunities for closer live/work relationships and accessibility to amenities and services in the City Centre. To design a centre which will facilitate and attract a high level of social activity both day and night, have an attractive visual quality, and a strong sense of identity. To create a visual identity for the City Centre by encouraging distinctive architectural themes for the built environment. To provide transportation facilities which accommodate trips to the City Centre from other areas of Mississauga and the surrounding region. To ensure the best use of existing and planned infrastructure. To encourage a range of housing types and sizes, including assisted housing, to meet the needs of the various socio-economic groups. (Mississauga, 1994: 13) 1994, Metro Toronto Official Plan: Major Centres: It is the policy of Council that Area Municipal plans and zoning by-laws shall require that the Major Centres : a) comprise a mix of uses with a concentration of employment activities and residential uses in a compact, high-density, urban form serviced by high capacity rapid transit. The development of a Major Centre should improve the overall housing/employment balance within the existing local area with the aim of moving this balance towards 1.5 residents per job over time. This ratio is not intended to be applied on a site by site basis; b) range in size from 5 to 15 hectares; c) be planned for at least 25, jobs to create concentrations of employment sufficient to promote a high degree of transit use. In this regard, the figures for the minimum employment levels set out in Table 2 are intended as guidelines, rather then requirements, for planning infrastructures and other services provided by the Metropolitan Corporation and Area Municipal detailed land use policies; and d) constitute a focus within Metropolitan Toronto for residents and visitors by including a wide variety of government, institutional, retail, cultural and recreational uses, and both public and civic buildings. (Metro Toronto, 1994: 12) 22, Toronto Official Plan: Centres The Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke and Yonge-Eglinton Centres are places with excellent transit accessibility where jobs, housing and services will be concentrated in dynamic mixed use settings with different levels of activity and intensity. These Centres are focal points for surface transit routes drawing people from across the City and from outlying suburbs to either jobs within the Centres or to a rapid transit connection The potential of the Centres to support various levels of both commercial office growth and residential growth outside of Downtown is important. This Plan envisages creating concentrations of workers and residents at these connections, resulting in important centres of economic activity accessible by transit. Building a high quality public realm featuring public squares and parks, public art, and a comfortable environment for pedestrians and cyclists, is essential to attract businesses, workers, residents and shoppers. (Toronto, 22: 17-18) 26, Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe: Urban Growth Centres Urban growth centres will be planned a. as focal areas for investment in institutional and region-wide services, as well as commercial, recreational, cultural and entertainment uses b. to accommodate and support major transit infrastructure c. to serve as high density major employment centres that will attract provincially, nationally or internationally significant employment uses d. to accommodate a significant share of population and employment growth. (Ontario, 26: 16)

17 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 9 residential developments (see Mississauga, 1968). The existence of this rigid hierarchy, in which centres of various importance were positioned to coincide with markets suitable to their size, was a major feature distinguishing master-planned communities from conventional suburban development. The plan for Meadowvale described its two major centres in this way: The vitality and variety of Meadowvale s active community life will be focused in two distinctive centres. All paths in Meadowvale will converge on these town centres to draw the community to its downtown cores and to communicate the spirit of the community among the greatest number of its residents. The two centres are designed as shopping-commercial-entertainment-cultural complexes. They are intended to produce aesthetic marketplace environments that are not only efficient, but stimulating and uplifting. Higher-density housing located near the town centres will assure a lively atmosphere throughout the day and evening. (Markborough Properties, n.d.: 17). As a rule, these centres in master-planned communities were better designed than retail areas near high-density residential districts in more conventional forms of suburban development. The centres expressed architectural sophistication and had more pedestrian pathways connecting them to surrounding neighbourhoods. Still, it would be difficult to describe these areas as truly pedestrian-friendly, because of the large surface parking lots surrounding the shopping centres. There are important differences between the juxtaposition of high-density residential development and the major centres of master-planned communities, on the one hand, and the nodal strategy that took shape later on, on the other. Residential-retailing juxtapositions and major centres were conceived as activity cores for residential areas, in the neighbourhood unit tradition, whereas nodes emanated from metropolitan structure issues (Perry et al., 1929). Still, these first initiatives marked early attempts at mixing activities and raising densities within suburban settings and encouraging pedestrian-based synergies, objectives that also characterize nodal strategies. Development along subway lines To encourage the use of Toronto s subway, planners proposed high-density mixeduse development along the lines and around the stations. This was notably the case along the Bloor-Danforth line, because density along the route at the time it was built was deemed insufficient to justify its existence. In the end, while some stations were the focus of high-density residential developments Main, Victoria Park, and High Park, for example it proved difficult to intensify the Bloor-Danforth line largely because of forceful opposition from residents living near the stations. Throughout the subway system as a whole, only a few stations experienced important growth. Among these, the two stations located at Yonge and St. Clair

18 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 1 and Yonge and Eglinton stand out by the wide range of functions they attracted and the early occurrence and importance of redevelopment (Lemon, 1985: 143). For example, in 1963, Procter and Gamble announced the construction of its Canadian headquarters on St. Clair Avenue at Yonge Street (Globe and Mail, 1 January 1963: 5). The Yonge-Eglinton area was later successful in attracting a large mixed-use complex. Yonge-St. Clair and Yonge-Eglinton were the two Regional Commercial Centres identified in the 1969 City of Toronto official plan. These centres were intended to attract office development and high-density housing (Toronto, 197). Redevelopment around these stations took place within the existing grid. Commercial buildings tended to front directly on sidewalks, while apartment structures were often set back behind a landscaped front yard. Overall, new developments respected the pedestrian-friendly nature of the pre-existing environment and fostered a high level of transit use. These two centres are now defined as mature nodes. Metropolitan Toronto and Region Transportation Study (MTARTS) An early version of the nodal concept appeared in 1967 with the publication of the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Transportation Study or MTARTS (Ontario, 1967), begun in The plan presented metropolitan-wide transportation proposals to improve accessibility in a rapidly growing region. It contained ambitious proposals for both expressways and rapid transit networks. The document also advanced a hierarchy of centres. The first tier consisted of downtown Toronto; the second tier was to include sub-regional centres. In some cases these would be created anew, while in other cases, they would arise from a consolidation of existing suburban central business districts. The document cited the Oakville CBD as an example of this second category of sub-regional centres. (See Map 1.) Sub-regional centres were defined as follows: These are the centres that functionally lie between the regional centre at downtown Toronto and the various categories of neighbourhood and community or town centres. In a complex of 6½ million people they have a critical role to play. They are means of bringing closer to home the wide range of services marketing, government, community, social and recreational that require a service base that is greater than the 2 to 25, persons in 4 or 5 neighbourhoods served by a typical community centre, but not as great as the multi-million population of the regional centre that has both national and international roots (Ontario, 1967: 3). The document went on to stress the retail and employment role these centres would play. It also underscored the need for coordination between sub-regional centre and transportation planning. From a transportation perspective, it defined the sub-regional centre as the hinge between the (regional) centre and its service areas (Ontario, 1967: 3).

19 Map 1: The hierarchy of centres in the MTARTS study, 1967 Image is cropped. Source: Ontario (1967: map 11). The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 11

20 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 12 The plan did not provide any guidelines for the layout and design of these centres. They were introduced essentially as a metropolitan-scale planning concept, meant to structure metropolitan development, especially in the suburbs, and reduce transportation demand by bringing employment, retailing, and services closer to housing. Although the plan was primarily focused on transportation and metropolitan form, and was not entirely clear on the planning role of sub-centres, it was the first to introduce this concept as part of a metropolitan-wide development strategy. This land use concept had even less influence on Toronto metropolitan region planning than the transportation proposals, which far exceeded implementation capacity. No new sub-regional centre was launched as a result of the MTARTS plan. The creation of the sub-regional centres that were then in existence preceded the formulation of MTARTS. The Metro Toronto sub-centre policy With the construction of several large office complexes from the mid-196s to the mid-197s, considerable concern was voiced about the accelerating employment growth in downtown Toronto. In 1974, the Core Area Task Force report highlighted difficulties with prevailing development tendencies: the overspecialization of the downtown risked displacing activities that foster a 24-hour use of the district and the rising numbers of commuters risked overburdening transportation infrastructures (Toronto, 1974). The report led to the adoption of the Core Area Holding Bylaw, a measure intended to freeze development until the adoption of a plan for the area. The political context It is important to understand the political context in which downtown development was reconsidered. The year 197 had seen the arrival of a new breed of reform councillors at the City of Toronto who were committed to the preservation of inner-city neighbourhoods threatened by high-rise apartment developments and a proposed expressway. The confidence of neighbourhood organizations was bolstered in 1971 by the provincial government s decision to abandon the Spadina Expressway proposal, which would have linked downtown to Highway 41, disrupting inner-city residential areas in the process. In the 1972 City of Toronto election, the reform caucus consolidated its power on council, and used its newfound political capacity to launch a secondary plan process across the city s neighbourhoods. The planning process was intended to canvass the views of residents about their neighbourhoods and to adopt plans that for the most part reflected those views. Residents of core-area neighbourhoods were still anxious about encroachments from downtown-type development and eventual road expansions to accommodate rising numbers of commuters.

21 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 13 Reports of the time mention the possibility of a sub-centre policy as a way to relieve employment growth pressures on the downtown. This was the case of the Roweis report on land costs in downtown Toronto, commissioned by the City of Toronto Planning Department, and of proposals in the Metropolitan Toronto Transportation Plan Review prepared by Richard Soberman, a transportation engineer from the University of Toronto (Globe and Mail, 1 February 1975: 6; 31 July 1975: 4; 18 October 1975: 5). Although it tightened controls on the density of downtown structures and introduced measures to encourage residential development, the Central Area Plan, adopted in 1977, did not limit the overall potential for downtown office growth as accelerated office development in the 198s demonstrated. Still, interest had been ignited in the potential of sub-centres to decentralize downtown employment. The 1981 Metro Toronto Official Plan The nodal policy was clearly laid out in the 1981 Metro Toronto Official Plan, the third to be prepared since the formation of the metropolitan government in 1953, but the first to be adopted by Metro Council. The document, titled Plan for the Urban Structure, identified two orders of nodes: major and intermediate centres. (See Map 2.) Major centres were to be: a. multi-functional in land use; b. compact and pedestrian oriented in their internal organization and design; c. intensive in their development relative to those areas which are not centres. Activities encouraged should include but not necessarily be limited to the following: retailing, offices, hotels, theatre, library, post offices, government and community activity while also serving as transportation hubs for local surface transit. (Metro Toronto, 1981: 22) The document insisted on close ties between centres and rapid transit networks, and stated a preference for locations that would optimize the use of existing infrastructure (Metro Toronto, 1981: 2). The picture that emerges from the Plan for the Urban Structure is that of centres that are compact, densely developed, transit-oriented, and provide a wide range of activities, even if the plan offered little indication of the actual layout of the centres or of how their different categories of activities would interconnect. These centres implied a break from prevailing low-density suburban development, in which land uses were separated and the car had priority. Most important, centres were to provide a transit-supportive alternative to the low-density suburban business parks then sprouting along expressways (Metro Toronto, 1989: 16-17).

22 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 14 Map 2: Centres designated in the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto s 1981 Plan Source: Metro Toronto (1981: 19). The plan identified two new major centres: one in North York, the other in Scarborough. In choosing the two major centres, the Metro Toronto Official Plan drew on the Official Plans of North York and Scarborough, which had already designated their own centres. As early as 1968, Scarborough approved the creation of a town centre, originally part of a projected industrial park. In the initial proposal, the town centre expressed the multi-functionality inherent in the 1981 Metro understanding of nodes. Agreement between the two definitions did not extend to transportation aspects, however. While the 1981 Metro Toronto Official Plan emphasized pedestrian orientation and the availability of rapid public transit, early planning for Scarborough Town Centre included plentiful surface parking, permitted vehicle sales and service uses, and failed to stress the importance of pedestrian connectivity (Scarborough, 1973: 11). North York designated a centre along Yonge Street in The centre was to host the full range of functions later listed in the Metro Toronto Official Plan definition of nodes. But here too, support of pedestrian hospitality failed to match that expressed in the Metro Toronto document. North York planners raised doubts about the viability of pedestrian orientation in the centre, given the heavy dependence on the automobile within the municipality (North York, 1978: 1-3). According to the Metro Toronto official plan, intermediate centres were to share the characteristics of major centres, but at a smaller scale (Metro Toronto, 1981:

23 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part ). The Metro Toronto plan listed four intermediate centres: Yonge-Eglinton, Yonge-St. Clair, Islington-Kipling, and Kennedy-Eglinton. A 1989 Metro Toronto planning report (Metropolitan Plan Review, Report No. 9: Centres and Office Areas) expressed satisfaction with the employment growth rate in the designated centres 4, jobs since But it also voiced concern about the trend for businesses to locate in dispersed auto-oriented suburban sites and the adverse impact this trend could have on the future development of suburban centres. Between 1976 and 1989, these dispersed sites attracted 95, jobs (Metro Toronto, 1989). The report noted, for example, the destabilizing effect on Scarborough Town Centre of the approval of office development on nearby industrial lands (Metro Toronto, 1989: 56). The document also called for new suburban rapid transit facilities to create sites for additional centres, reduce pressures for further growth in the Central Area, and alter the trends of continued high levels of dispersed auto-oriented development (Metro Toronto, 1989: 88). Mississauga s central core plan The City of Mississauga was also trying to create its own centre, but it took an approach different from that of Metro Toronto. In 1975, Mississauga City Council committed to the development of a city core, motivated by a desire to create a complete city, rather than remain a mere bedroom community. Achieving this goal meant attracting higher-order jobs, like those held by many of its affluent residents, who were commuting to offices outside Mississauga. A planned core area that would also be the focal point for Mississauga s civic, commercial, and cultural life was perceived as suited to this purpose (Globe and Mail, 2 January 1976: 5; Mississauga, 1978). This perspective was enshrined in the city s 1981 Official Plan (see also Mississauga, 1978; Starr Group, 1988). Another purpose of the planned core area was to contribute to an urban structure that would be more conducive to transit use. At this stage, however, relatively little attention was given to the urban form of this centre. The OGTA nodal policy Of the sub-centres designated in Metro s Plan for the Urban Structure, the two major ones, North York Centre and Scarborough Town Centre, were successful in attracting employment during the 198s. Mississauga City Centre was also successful in this way (see Part Two of the report). The experience of the minor nodes, however, was not as positive. True, Yonge-Eglinton and Yonge-St. Clair were already largely developed by the 198s, so continued high rates of growth were unlikely. But the other ones, Islington-Kipling and Kennedy-Eglinton, failed to emerge. Still, the example of the successful sub-centres confirmed the feasibility of mixed-use centres as a planning tool and raised the interest of many suburban municipalities in this form of development.

24 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 16 Spread, central, and nodal development forms The Office for the Greater Toronto Area (OGTA), a provincial government agency set up in 1988 by David Peterson s Liberal government, commissioned the IBI Group, a consulting firm, to forecast the consequences, over the period, of different growth concepts for the Greater Toronto Area. 2 The report advanced three concepts: the spread concept, which was a continuation of prevailing trends; the central concept, which concentrated a substantial share of future growth within the extant urbanized perimeter (Metro and adjacent builtup areas); the nodal concept, which as a hybrid of the two previous concepts channelled future growth to and around various existing communities (IBI, 199a: 5.2). The study compared the three concepts along eight dimensions: urban structure, economic impacts, transportation, hard services, the environment, human services, external impacts, and overall infrastructure costs. Differences in overall transportation infrastructure costs between the three scenarios were found to be negligible, even if the distribution between road and transit varied considerably between the scenarios. In the spread concept, the lion s share of costs went to roads rather than public transit ($19.9 billion on roads vs. $7.2 billion on transit between 199 and 211), whereas the central concept involved more spending on transit ($14.4 billion) than on roads ($13.2 billion). The nodal concept s allocation was in between ($11.6 billion for transit and $17 billion for roads) (IBI, 199b: 33 and Exhibit 4). There were, however, important differences in the cost of water and sewer mains and in local services and roads; the spread concept was 54 per cent more expensive than the central concept for these elements of infrastructure. Transportation operating costs were also significantly lower for the central and, to a lesser extent, nodal concepts than for the spread concept (IBI, 1991b: 53). And, as expected, the three concepts represented considerable differences in the additional amount of land to be developed between 1988 and 221. Under the spread scenario, the GTA urbanized surface would increase by 34 per cent, whereas this growth would be 26 per cent under the central scenario. At 29 per cent, the nodal concept was in between the other two (IBI 1991b: Exhibit 1). After comparing the three concepts, the report recommended adoption of the nodal concept. The spread scenario was deemed unacceptable because it would lead to severe deterioration in environmental and traffic conditions. The status 2 The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) refers to municipalities surrounding and including the City of (formerly Metro) Toronto the Regional Municipalities of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham. There is not and has never been a unified administration covering this area.

25 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 17 quo was seen as too damaging to the quality of life and economy of the GTA. At the same time, however, the report depicted the central concept as too ambitious and too opposed to prevailing development patterns. The obvious compromise was the nodal concept. As the Metro Official Plan had done a decade earlier, the IBI report proposed a hierarchy of nodes, this time consisting of three levels. So-called A nodes were to be located on major commuter rail or rapid transit lines in communities that are already reasonably well established and where development and redevelopment possibilities favoured such nodes (IBI, 199a: 2). Their eventual population was to exceed 75, and they were to accommodate 5, jobs. The population of B nodes was to range from 25, to 75, and of C nodes from 5, to 2,, and their employment was to reach 25, and 5,, respectively. Although it would be preferable for them also to have access to rail transit, B and C nodes could be served by express bus (IBI, 199a). With the IBI report, the term node gained currency, replacing sub-centre, which had been used in Metro Toronto s Plan for the Urban Structure. Also, in comparison to the sub-centres of the Metro Toronto plan, the nodes in the IBI report had a substantially larger purpose. The prevention of a downtown over-concentration of office employment was no longer a preoccupation. Nodes were presented as the linchpin of a metropolitan planning strategy to reduce the surface taken by urban development and residents reliance on the car, while increasing transit patronage and walking, and lowering some of the costs associated with urban development and the operation and maintenance of urban infrastructure and services. Nodes were seen as an instrument of sustainable development. The word node in the report was never precisely defined, however. The term nodal was used for development that built on existing communities and infrastructure, and allowed growth both in the suburbs and the central city, but at a higher density than before (IBI, 199b: 52). In this light, nodes as dense mixed-use centres were simply one component of the nodal scenario. Nodal development could be seen as a medium-density pattern of metropolitan development or as a type of growth focused on high-density mixed-use centres. In addition, the report was pitched at a metropolitan scale following its mandate and said little about the actual form nodes would take: their layout and design or the integration of their activities. The IBI Group report was the first, however, to use combined joband-resident density targets to define nodes (IBI Group, 199a). Too many nodes? The nodal perspective was adopted wholeheartedly by the OGTA, which broadcast it in two documents widely distributed in the early 199s (OGTA, 1991; 1992). One contained a map of the GTA that identified 29 potential nodes. It confirmed the dominant position of nodes within the OGTA s regional policy and depicted the nodes as hubs of metropolitan-wide transportation corridors.

26 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 18 In reports produced in 1991 (for Metro Toronto) and 1992 (for the OGTA), the consulting firm of Berridge Lewinberg Greenberg explored the concept of nodes further. These reports stressed the importance of design in the success of nodes, a reaction to what they described as the poor configuration of the nodes that had developed around shopping malls and their large parking lots (such as Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre). The firm emphasized the importance of a high-quality public realm similar to the liveable urban environments found in central areas. The 1991 report recommended reliance on both nodes and corridors to heighten density and transit use (Berridge Lewinberg Greenberg, 1991). Concerned about an over-abundance of nodes, which would prevent the achievement of the critical mass needed for any one of them to become a major pole of attraction, the firm called for a hierarchy of nodes in its 1992 report (Berridge Lewinberg Greenberg, 1992). The order of nodes it defined and their features for the most part replicated the IBI Group proposals. The concept of nodes met with enthusiasm on the part of local and regional administrations. For example, in accordance with the OGTA urban structure proposals, the 1994 Metro Toronto Official Plan identified many more centres than the 1981 plan (14 major, intermediate, and local centres vs. 6 in the 1981 plan) (Metro Toronto, 1994). In 1997, a Canadian Urban Institute report identified no fewer than 47 nodes designated in various official plans for municipalities throughout the GTA (Miller, Emeneau and Farrow, 1997). This report criticized the proliferation of nodes, and the effect this proliferation would have on infrastructure priorities, especially public transit development. The authors recommended concentrating new public transit investment on a limited number of large nodes instead of attempting to provide services to a multitude of nodes (Miller, Emeneau and Farrow, 1997: 3 4). They also investigated the similarities and differences between nodes as defined in the different official plans. Although all plans subscribed to common principles of mixed use, compactness, and reliance on transit and walking, there was considerable variation in the scope of their objectives. For example, transit modal shares for nodes projected by regional administrations ranged from 15 to 4 per cent (Miller, Emeneau and Farrow, 1997: 12). Nodes in regional and municipal official plans The urban structure strategies of all recent GTA regional plans emphasize the creation of nodes (Durham, 21: 42; Halton, 1995: B3a, B3b3; Peel, 21: 59-9; York, 22: 44, 47). Over previous decades, municipal plans had considered the possibility of developing nodes, focusing on local conditions essential to their emergence, such as the presence of necessary infrastructure and appropriate zoning bylaws (for example, North York, 1991; Pickering, 1996; Richmond Hill, 1991; Vaughan, 1994). Overall, the nodes in the regional plans across the GTA correspond to those in OGTA documents, with the addition of some extra nodes (Miller, Emeneau and Farrow, 1997: 22). However, reacting to criticism about the proliferation of proposals for nodes, the 22 City of Toronto Official Plan reduced the number of centres it designated from 14 to 4 (Toronto, 22:17).

27 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 19 Three municipal plans particularly emphasize the design of nodes and the integration of their activities in a fashion that is conducive to walking and transit use. The 1994 North York Downtown and Uptown Plan insisted on uninterrupted sidewalk-aligned façades, which incorporate retail, and encouraged the addition of arches projecting from the buildings to cover sidewalks. The plan also expressed commitment to the quality of urban design to make the environment more appealing to pedestrians (North York, 1994: D1-3, D1-14, D2-9, D2-1, D2-13). After years of opposition from residents over the impact of high-density development on nearby neighbourhoods, the plan prescribed a ring road to separate the high-density centre from its low-density surroundings (Toronto Star, 1 April 1989; 19 July 1989; 12 February 1993). Limited street access to the ring road would prevent non-local traffic entering these residential areas. That same year, the City of Mississauga carried out a design exercise on how to transform its City Centre from a predominantly automobile-oriented to a pedestrian-friendly environment (Mississauga, 1994a). With the help of computergenerated simulations, the exercise demonstrated how space, especially surface parking lots, could be filled in with medium-rise structures, and how façades could be extended to the street line. The outcome was a layout that was drastically different from the existing one. Even more ambitious than these two plans was the design for the projected 364- hectare (9-acre) Markham Central Area Planning District, inspired by the principles of New Urbanism (Malone Given Parsons, 1994; Markham, 1994). The Markham Centre plan, on which the Duany Plater Zyberk (DPZ) firm collaborated, involved for the most part medium-rise structures distributed along a wide boulevard. Consistent with the principles of New Urbanism, retailing and hospitality services were to front on sidewalks. The plan entirely ruled out surface parking lots and proposed that the centre be occupied mostly by buildings and green space. The natural features of the centre, the Rouge River and its tributaries, were to provide the basis of a vast green space system (see also Schollen and Company, 24). Apart from North York Centre, where new developments have aligned their façades to the street, and some infill on former parking lots in Mississauga City Centre, the design guidelines meant to enhance pedestrian-friendliness have proven to be difficult to implement. Nowhere is this more evident than in Markham, where early centre development has tended to opt for a campus-like rather than streetoriented layout. This is notably the case of the 54, m 2 IBM Canada office complex, which is expected to grow to 13, m 2. Still, this development has not compromised the character of the New Urbanism-inspired portion of the centre, which has now reached the development stage. Bold modal share objectives were formulated for suburban nodes. The goal in North York Centre was to reduce the rush-hour automobile modal share to 33 per cent. In Scarborough Town Centre planners aspired to raise the transit propor-

28 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 2 tion of commuting journeys to 55 per cent, and the objective in Mississauga City Centre was to achieve a 5 per cent overall transit modal share (North York, 1991; North York, 1994; Scarborough, 1996; Mississauga, 1994b). The uneven success of nodes Four nodes stand out by the extent of their growth: the Yonge-Eglinton node in the inner city, and North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre in the suburbs. But these are not the only existing nodes. In the inner city, the Yonge-St. Clair node has achieved a measure of success, as have Bramalea Centre and Pickering Centre in the suburbs. And Markham Centre, another suburban node, is currently under development. Still, many planned nodes have yet to see any growth at all. What circumstances contributed to the development of the four most successful nodes? Yonge-Eglinton and North York Centre were both developed on a subway line. A new station was built on the Yonge Line to serve North York Centre. Scarborough Town Centre benefited from the construction of a light rail transit line linking it to the subway line. Mississauga City Centre is the only one without rail transit, although it does contain the City of Mississauga bus terminal. Two suburban nodes Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre developed around a pre-existing regional mall, erected in both instances in 1973 and subsequently expanded. These nodes were also the sites of important public-sector investments: office buildings (including in the three suburban cases, a city hall) and in two of the nodes, a library, a theatre, and a public square. Good public transit access, publicsector investments, and the presence of a regional mall acted as catalysts for office and residential development. One can also add zoning by-laws that encouraged high-density development. Generally, the nodes that failed to materialize lacked these conditions for development. Many such nodes existed only as planning designations deprived of adequate public transit access and of supportive public-sector investments. One can only conclude that these designations rested on the hope that appropriate development would occur at some point in the future. Corridors: an overlooked element In the 199s fervour for metropolitan-scale planning, corridors remained very much in the shadow of nodes as instruments of urban structure planning. As the schematic maps included in the OGTA documents demonstrated, the role of corridors was relegated to that of loosely defined links between nodes (OGTA, 1991; 1992). Planning documents of the 199s and early 2s alluded occasionally to

29 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 21 corridors. But in a fashion that recalls that of the OGTA documents, the concept remained underdeveloped. In the words of the 1997 Canadian Urban Institute report: Although there has been some interesting work to date, this is limited in scope and it appears that how corridors will function and be marketed needs to be considered more thoroughly with regard to the wide variety of circumstances under which these could develop across the GTA (Miller, Emeneau and Farrow, 1997: 4). Corridors were seen as a desirable, but insufficiently understood, accompaniment to the nodal strategy. The Main Streets and Avenues strategies One exception to the underdevelopment of the corridor concept is the Main Street strategy, later relabelled, with some modifications, as the Avenues strategy, adopted by the old City of Toronto, Metro Toronto, and the new City of Toronto (Gilbert, 199; 1993). This strategy encouraged the redevelopment of car-oriented, low-density (one- and two-storey) commercial strips into medium-rise environments conducive to walking and transit use. Main Streets were to be bordered by six- to eight-storey residential buildings providing continuous retailing façades on the ground floor. They would also feature greatly enhanced public transit services and pedestrian-hospitable environments. The Main Street strategy was a key component of the 1994 Metro Toronto official plan (Metro Toronto, 1994). A decade later, the same approach, renamed the Avenues, was presented as a mainstay of a broader strategy intended to absorb much of the GTA s anticipated demographic and economic growth within the City of Toronto. The City of Toronto s 22 official plan calls for a minimum of 2 per cent of the GTA s residential expansion (at least 537, additional residents by 231), and 3 per cent of new GTA jobs (544, more jobs by 231) to be directed to the city (Toronto, 22: 7). Redeveloped Avenues, along with nodes and brownfields, are to absorb most of this residential and employment growth. The Main Street and Avenues policies ran into difficulties that account for their very limited implementation. One was the problem of accommodating parking within the proposed narrow mid-rise structures. Attempts were made to reduce the parking-per-unit allowance on the grounds that people choosing to reside in this type of environment would be less likely to own cars. But the City, responding to pressures from its traffic department, turned down the request (Farncombe, 1993). Another obstacle was limited enthusiasm on the part of developers to build mid-rise buildings. Developers prefer to build high-rises, for once the land is purchased and the construction equipment is in place, adding extra floors is relatively inexpensive. This issue is still an object of investigation. 3 And finally, and perhaps 3 The City of Toronto Planning Division in association with the Canadian Urban Institute organized a symposium on mid-rise development along the Avenues in late November 25 (Toronto, 25).

30 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 22 most significantly, residents of surrounding neighbourhoods opposed increases in the density of arterials for fear of worsening traffic congestion and parking problems on surrounding residential streets. Opposition was particularly sharp when proposals were made to allow high-rise structures on arterials (Barber, 1993). If the Main Street and Avenues policies have proven difficult to launch in suburban areas of the City of Toronto (at present there is little evidence of Main Streetor Avenues-inspired redevelopment along suburban arterials), some Avenues are taking shape at the edges of downtown Toronto. An outcome of the post-2 condominium boom, major streets once lined with parking lots and poorly maintained low-rise structures are now bordered with new residential buildings, often with retail at the street level. Most of these buildings, however, are much higher than the six to eight floors specified by the Main Street and Avenues policies. Smart Growth and Places to Grow Development trends in the late 199s and early 21 st century The OGTA planning reports had little impact on the overall development pattern of the GTA. Despite the enthusiasm of suburban local and regional municipalities for nodes, most of the nodes designated in official plans remained concepts on paper only (see Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario, 23: 2). Even the established nodes (with the exception of North York Centre) stalled in terms of employment growth from the early 199s onwards. In the first years of the decade, they were victims of a deep recession that caused office vacancies to skyrocket across the GTA. But when the economy recovered, most office development bypassed nodes, and downtown Toronto itself, opting for suburban locales with ample free surface parking. (See Maps 5 and 6 on page 55.) By the beginning of the 21st century, nodes had reached a stage in their development where little additional space was available for free surface parking (Berridge, 22: 6). Moreover, although nodes provided excellent access to expressways, so did many other suburban employment locations. Taxes that far exceeded those of outer-suburban jurisdictions represented another impediment to development for nodes in Toronto relative to sites outside the city limits (Canadian Urban Institute, 25). The trend in the GTA was for employment to locate in scattered suburban locations with excellent highway access, as it did elsewhere in North America (Lang, 23). These circumstances account for slow development in nodes over the 199s, until massive condominium development boosted development. The recent wave of condo development mostly benefited areas within the urbanized perimeter, largely Toronto s core and three mature nodes: North York Centre, Mississauga City Centre, and Scarborough Town Centre (e.g., Toronto Star, 3 August 23). Yet the flurry of residential development, coinciding with an absence of employment growth in these centres, may signal a redistribution of residential and employment areas across the metropolitan region. The traditional

31 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 23 pattern, whereby people tend to live in lower-density areas and work in higherdensity districts, may be in the process of reversing, with adverse consequences for GTA metropolitan-scale planning goals. Such a shift would further separate land uses, resulting in longer journeys to work. Moreover, a high proportion of work trips are done by car, given the dispersed nature of suburban employment, which represents a major impediment to the operation of public transit. The gap between GTA development patterns and the OGTA vision ran deeper than the failure of nodes to attract employment. But it was perhaps in the retail sector that the distance between the planning vision and development trends was greatest. With the arrival of big-box stores in the early 199s, retailing became even more suburbanized and a more important generator of automobile trips than in the past. Almost all big-box stores were located in suburban locations with easy access to expressways and arterial roads and abundant space for parking. Big-box developments, either as self-standing structures or grouped into power centres, represent the opposite of the mixed-use developments promoted in most official plans. Not only do they devote large areas to a single function retailing but each store generally specializes in only one type of merchandise (Hernandez, Biasiotto and Jones, 23; Simmons and Hernandez, 24a; 24b). The impact on transportation can be substantial. While malls lend themselves to comparison-shopping and allow the purchase of a wide variety of goods under one roof, shoppers often have to drive from one big-box store to another to compare prices and find different categories of goods (Boykin and Lord, 1997). These land use trends, allied with lifestyle changes, increased people s reliance on the car, especially for non-work trips. As the 199s came to an end, traffic congestion and its damaging effect on quality of life and economic development were growing objects of preoccupation in the GTA, particularly in light of the forecast of 2 million additional residents over the next 2 years (see McLeod, 1999; Miller and Shalaby, 23). There was a generalized sense in the media and among business people and politicians that increasing traffic congestion could jeopardize the economic growth in the region. Such problems were not confined to Toronto. A number of U.S. local administrations either adopted or considered no-growth policies in the 198s and 199s in response to pressures from residents voicing their resentment towards the environmental, traffic, and financial problems caused by contemporary urban development (see Downs, 1992). Smart growth In large part, smart growth emerged as an alternative to no-growth policies, by proposing modifications to prevailing development to reduce its environmental impacts, alleviate congestion, and control infrastructure and service costs (APA, 22; Benfield, Terris and Vorsager, 21; Bolbier, 1998; Pim and Ornoy, 22).

32 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 24 The main targets of smart growth were urban sprawl and automobile reliance. Smart growth consisted of various measures to address urban form and transportation issues: limiting outward development; intensifying urbanized areas; developing public transit systems; making it more difficult and costly to use a car; and adopting land use patterns that encouraged transit use and walking. Smart growth advocates also promoted social equity, housing affordability, recreational uses that respect nature, and the preservation of heritage and natural features. Notwithstanding variations in the breadth of the issues it encompassed and the reach of its proposals, the smart growth message was adopted in the United States, its country of origin, by a wide variety of state and municipal administrations, both Democrat and Republican. The combination of environmental, quality of life, and economic concerns facilitated the crossing of ideological boundaries. Among the most forceful proponents were the state governments of California, Maryland, New Jersey, and Oregon. In 22, the Mike Harris Conservative government in Ontario set up five regional panels to examine smart growth options for the province. One of these, the Central Zone Panel, was responsible for a territory that stretched from south of Algonquin Park to Fort Erie and from Waterloo Region to east of Peterborough. The zone, home to more than 7.5 million people, was expected to grow by 3 million people over the next 25 years. Finding ways to accommodate this growth in a fashion that respected the environment, was affordable, and maintained equity and quality of life was the mandate of the panel, which included local and regional politicians, business people, and representatives from public-sector agencies and environmental groups. The business-as-usual scenario was rejected out of hand because of multiple adverse impacts projected for 3 years into the future: commuting trips that would take 45 per cent longer, mostly due to congestion; a marked deterioration in air quality; worsening delays in the movement of goods; and possibly higher taxes (IBI, 22). The term gridlock was used to characterize the existing situation and future transportation conditions in the absence of corrective measures. A subpanel of the Central Zone Panel was even named Gridlock. The Central Zone Panel produced a concept map illustrating its vision of the region in 235. The map provided more detail than the OGTA sketch had done 1 years earlier. It delineated protected natural zones (the Niagara Escarpment and the Oak Ridges Moraine) and designated future urban areas as well as agricultural land under stress from growth pressures. The concept map also presented projected transportation networks for 235, with a strong emphasis on public transit: TTC rail, GO rail, bus rapid transit, and inter-city and inter-regional rapid transit. With an ambiguity that was probably intended, the expressways were referred to as existing or proposed economic corridors (Ontario, 23: 8).

33 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 25 As in the OGTA plan, nodes were an important feature of the vision. They were defined as Discrete areas within urban centres that have compact, mixed-use (i.e., residential, commercial and industrial) development and that are linked by transit (Ontario, 23: 12). The map identified 26 nodes. These included traditional downtown areas of self-contained municipalities (Peterborough, Oshawa, Barrie, Guelph, Waterloo, Kitchener, Brantford, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, and Fort Erie), traditional downtowns of communities within or near the edges of the contiguous built-up envelope around Toronto (Burlington, Oakville, Milton, and Newmarket), as well as existing or planned mixed-use centres (Yonge- Eglinton, North York Centre, Scarborough Centre, Etobicoke Centre, Pickering Town Centre, Markham Centre, Richmond Hill Langstaff Gateway, Vaughan Corporate Centre, Brampton City Centre, and Mississauga City Centre). The map portrayed the strategic location of nodes at the meeting of, or on, major transportation routes (Ontario, 23: 8). By the very nature of the nodes it designated, the vision implied the existence of different categories of nodes. The Central Zone Panel also borrowed the concept of urban corridors from the OGTA documents, which it described as follows: Transportation corridors within urban centres or within the metropolis that link nodes to each other. They have compact development along their length. Yonge Street in Toronto is an example of an urban corridor (Ontario, 23: 12). The Smart Growth planning initiative was truncated by the October 23 election, in which the Conservatives were replaced by a Liberal government. In consequence, while the Central Zone Panel did produce a plan, its structuring concepts offered few technical specifications. What is more, the plan lacked an implementation strategy. Places to Grow Upon taking power, the Liberal government launched a similar metropolitan region planning initiative called Places to Grow. To a large extent, this initiative took up where the previous one had ended. Indeed, most of the components of Places to Grow were borrowed from the Central Zone Panel plan. Similarities between the concepts that emanated from the two planning exercises are illustrated by a comparison of the maps they produced. Notwithstanding a minor time horizon difference (the Central Zone Panel presents a growth concept for 235; Places to Grow presents one for 231), there is a great deal of similarity between the two maps. (See Map 3 on page 27.) The nodes have been relabelled urban growth centres (UGCs) in Places to Grow, but are nearly all the same as those in the previous report, as are the major transportation links. Two differences between the concepts, however, are the much larger amount of protected green space in Places to Grow and its clearer definition of urban growth areas.

34 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 26 The Liberal government planning initiative was also distinguished by the relative rapidity with which legislation meant to strengthen the province s growth control capacity in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) was adopted. 4 In February 25, the Greenbelt Act, which gave the provincial government the power to delineate the Greenbelt and control land uses within it, was given royal assent (Ontario, 25a). The Greenbelt covers 1.8 million acres (728,43 hectares) of land, including 8, acres (323,75 hectares) under the jurisdiction of the Niagara Escarpment Plan and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan. In June 25, the Places to Grow Act received royal assent (Ontario, 25b). In essence, the act gives the provincial government the ability to establish growth plans specifying policies for urban growth and land use in defined areas. The act requires regional and municipal official plans to comply with policies contained in provincial plans. The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe is the first such growth plan. The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe shares the concerns that drove the previous Smart Growth process: delays in the movement of goods due to traffic congestion, causing an economic loss of $5 billion a year (Ontario, 26a: 7); high infrastructure expenses, which could be reduced by 2 per cent with higher density and more concentrated development (Ontario, 26a: 22); degradation of the natural environment (Ontario, 26a: 3); a relation between land use and transportation that is inimical to public transit and favourable to the car and thus likely to increase traffic congestion (Ontario, 26a: 8). Places to Grow policies rest on an updated version of the employment and demographic projections used in the Smart Growth planning exercise. Between 21 and 231, the population within the GGH is forecast to grow from 7.8 to 11.5 million, and the number of jobs from 3.8 to 5.6 million (Hemson Consulting, 25). 4 The Greater Golden Horseshoe comprises the GTA (the City of Toronto and the Regional Municipalities of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham), the Cities of Hamilton and Kawartha Lakes, the Regional Municipalities of Niagara and Waterloo, and Haldimand, Brant, Wellington, Dufferin, Simcoe, Peterborough, and Northumberland Counties. 5 It should be noted that the provincial government has long maintained the right to establish provincial land use plans to which municipal plans must conform. Plans in effect include the Parkway Belt West Plan (1978), the Niagara Escarpment Plan (1985), the Oak Ridge Moraine Conservation Plan (21), the Greenbelt Plan (25), the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (26), and the Central Pickering Development Plan (26).

35 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 27 Map 3: Urban Growth Centres designated in Places to Grow G e o r g i a n B a y Downtown Barrie Lake Simcoe Downtown Peterborough Uptown Waterloo Downtown Guelph Downtown Kitchener Niagara Escarpment Downtown Cambridge Downtown Brantford Downtown Milton Brampton City Centre Newmarket Centre Richmond Hill/ Langstaff Gateway Vaughan Corporate Centre Yonge-Eglinton Centre Downtown Pickering Scarborough Centre Downtown Toronto Etobicoke Centre Mississauga City Centre Midtown Oakville Downtown Burlington Downtown Hamilton L a k e Markham City Centre North York Centre E r i e Oak Ridges Moraine Downtown St. Catharines Downtown Oshawa L a k e O n t a r i o Urban Growth Centre 21 Major Built-Up Urban Area Greenbelt Plan Area Greater Golden Horseshoe Study Area 3 6 km Data Sources: Approximate location of each Urban Growth Centre based on: Urban Growth Centres in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Ontario Growth Secretariat (Winter 25) and Municipal Official Plans. Other data: Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, National Topographic System, Statistics Canada: Census Neptis Foundation. Unlike the previous administration, the Liberal government appears willing to rely on strict regulations to achieve its development control objectives. Some of the most prominent, and possibly difficult to reach, among these objectives are the mixing of residential and employment uses, the raising of density to a transitsupportive level, and the requirement that all upper- and single-tier municipalities direct 4 per cent of residential development to their existing built-up area by 215 (Ontario, 26a: 4). Urban Growth Centres (UGCs) are a crucial part of the GGH settlement strategy because they can accommodate some of the growth within the perimeter of exist-

36 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 28 ing built-up areas and help create an urban environment conducive to transit use, cycling, and walking. Merely requiring a substantial share of forecast development to occur within the urbanized perimeter would be insufficient on its own to reach density and modal share objectives and to bring vitality to suburban environments. The Growth Plan gives a primary role to UGCs among intensification areas. Such areas also include major transit station areas and intensification corridors. UGCs are defined as: typically core metropolitan areas and significant economic hubs that serve as destinations with a regional focus. They currently have or are planned to have high- and medium-density residential areas, mixed-use areas, office areas, retail areas, and regeneration areas. They perform a regional services function, and as such have good inter-regional transportation connections (transit and/or automobile) (Ontario, 25c: 1). The UGCs were selected on the basis of their potential to accommodate growth in a mixed-use and compact environment. 6 (The removal of two nodes downtown Niagara Falls and downtown Fort Erie from the Central Zone Panel s list was motivated by the anticipation of slow growth in that area, which would make it difficult for these nodes to attract substantial development.) The proximity of major transportation routes, public transit or expressways, integration with the local transit system, as well as infrastructure capacity also accounts for the selection of UGCs. Differences between categories of UGCs were recognized in a background paper, which described two broad types. Priority centres are recognized as already-functioning urban centres providing regional services, containing existing infrastructure and with established transportation linkages (Ontario, 25c: 3). Emerging centres are identified in municipal planning documents or possess some characteristics of regional centres. Emerging centres have the potential to evolve into full-fledged regional centres by accommodating substantial growth (Ontario, 25c: 3). However, these distinctions were not incorporated in the final plan. Places to Grow further acknowledges that UGCs can be broken down into other categories, including traditional downtown areas, 7 planned mixed-use centres that have attained various levels of development, and proposed centres that have yet to materialize. UGCs can also be differentiated on the basis of their size. As specified in the 25 discussion paper on UGCs, their areas range from 3 km 2 (Yonge-Eglinton) to 26 km 2 (Richmond Hill/Langstaff Gateway). Another source 6 Given the near-perfect overlap between the nodes of the Central Zone Panel and Places to Grow s Urban Growth Centres, the latter exercise can be perceived as essentially adding criteria to justify a selection that had already taken place. 7 Most mid-size city downtowns have been the object of successive redevelopment and revitalization initiatives. It is, however, with the recent Smart Growth and Places to Grow exercises that downtowns have been given a regional structuring role.

37 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 29 of difference among UGCs is their density. The highest residential and employment density is found in downtown Toronto (233 people and jobs per hectare) and the lowest in the Vaughan Corporate Centre (25 people and jobs per hectare). (See Ontario, 25c.) The Draft Growth Plan expressed an awareness of the need for different approaches to deal with these contrasting circumstances, but did not elaborate on this point (Ontario, 25d: 18). The recognition of the necessity for approaches tailored to the variety of conditions found across the GGH was also mirrored in the proposal for sub-area growth strategies (Ontario, 25d: 42 44). These strategies are to address variable contexts, interests, issues, and challenges to implementing the Plan s vision and policies (Ontario, 25d: 42). In the Growth Plan as enacted, the approximate size and location of UGCs is to be established by the Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal, in consultation with other Ministers of the Crown, municipalities and other stakeholders (Ontario, 26a: 35). The Growth Plan also mentions intensification corridors, which are defined as resulting from increased residential and employment densities along existing or planned transit services (Ontario, 25d: 43). The plan does not identify different categories of intensification corridors. In addition, the distinction between UGCs and intensification corridors is not always clear, especially in UGCs that cover a very large area. Why nodes? At this point it is legitimate to ask why nodes have been given so much importance for more than 25 years in various Greater Toronto Area planning exercises. It is not that there are no other possible approaches to urban structure planning. Among alternatives widely aired in the literature are the combination of satellite communities and new towns presented in the 1929 Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs and later adopted by a number of other metropolitan regions across the world including London (and other British metropolitan regions) and Paris. (Aldridge, 1979; American Institute of Planners, 1965; Johnson, 1996; Kessler and Bodiguel, 197; New York Committee on the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, 1929; Osborn, 1969; Shaffer, 1972). Since the purpose of such satellite communities was to temper growth pressures on the central built-up area, they were planned to achieve a measure of self-sufficiency. Still, they were typically connected to the core of the region by high-quality public transit systems, such as the Réseau Express Régional in the Paris region (Merlin, 1969). Another approach consists in the coordination of growth and public transit in a way that produces linear development along transit lines. One example would be the Copenhagen finger plan. Another version was adopted by Curitiba, Brazil, where high-density redevelopment is directed along major public transit lines (Cervero, 1998). What differentiates the satellite communities and the linear

38 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 3 development models from the Toronto nodal policy is that they involve an important proportion of metropolitan growth. Nodes are in comparison a form of planning intervention whose impact is far more limited. There was a time, however, when highly ambitious metropolitan planning proposals were formulated for the Toronto region, on a par with the most advanced international examples. The Toronto Centred Region plan, tabled in 197, proposed an elongated urban form along Lake Ontario, whose northward expansion would be contained so as to ensure compatibility between urban growth and east-west transportation infrastructure. Beyond this continuous band of urban development, growth was to be accommodated in satellite communities that would be prevented from coalescing (Ontario, 197). Little came of this plan. Responding to pressures from municipalities and landowners north of Toronto, the Province not only failed to impose regulations preventing development from spreading beyond the plan s growth boundary, but it constructed a high-capacity sewer system to support such growth. Still, the Toronto metropolitan region presents an urban form that is dense and contiguous by North American standards, the outcome of its dependence on Lake Ontario for water and sewage, and of an approach to land use planning that discourages leapfrogging. The emphasis on nodes as a Toronto metropolitan planning instrument can be seen as reflecting a commitment to achieve planning goals at the metropolitan scale. At the same time, however, reliance on nodes rather than on some of the more ambitious metropolitan planning strategies adopted abroad or proposed for Toronto, suggests the absence of a strong commitment to modify prevailing development tendencies. The intent of nodes was to generate within the existing urban structure focal points characterized by multi-functionality, a relatively high density, and a public transit and walking orientation. Nodes thus involve welldelimited interventions, in contrast with the comprehensive measures on which rest the more ambitious metropolitan planning initiatives. The popularity of nodes within the Toronto region planning community may also be related to a relative ease of implementation. For one thing, the concentrated nature of nodes and the possibility of constructing them on greenfield sites minimize the potential for NIMBY reactions. Even when nodes are the outcome of redevelopment, a clear definition of their perimeter, as is the case in North York Centre, may allay the concerns of nearby residents. For another, the development of nodes did not entail restrictions on private-sector development. In Toronto, the nodal strategy relied on incentives advantageous accessibility, a strong publicsector presence and well-designed public spaces to attract private investors. Metropolitan strategies that would have affected areas larger than nodes and that would have relied more on coercion than on incentives would likely have triggered more resident and developer resistance. But as we will see in the second part of the report, the way nodes developed in Toronto is responsible for the fact that so many have not met their planning objectives.

39 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 31 Why not corridors? Intensification corridors could help solve growth problems by blending high density and mixed use along a transit-supportive and pedestrian-friendly axis. Nodes at the meeting points of such corridors would benefit from the presence of pedestrians and transit users living along the corridors (Filion, 23). The ineffectiveness of the Main Street and Avenues strategies, however, highlights difficulties in creating intensification corridors. Such initiatives require street-oriented redevelopment along the corridors, which may be many kilometres long and may cross municipal or regional boundaries. Corridors also demand sustained interest and consistent interventions over a long development period. These requirements may well be beyond the limits of the coordination capacity of the contemporary planning system. Another obstacle to intensification corridor strategies comes from the NIMBYist reactions they trigger. Unlike nodes, which have only a limited interface with established residential areas because of their small size, corridors interface with such areas over long distances, heightening the potential for neighbourhood opposition. Finally, there is the problem of how to launch such a strategy on a given arterial. The first developers who build medium-rise housing on a car-oriented retail strip are taking a considerable risk. If the planned intensification does not take off, they will be left with a residential investment in an environment that is poorly suited for such a use. On the other hand, if the intensification process is successful, the early developers will have purchased land at a lower cost than later investors, who will have to pay prices inflated by the emerging residential-friendly character of the corridor. Despite all these difficulties, York Region and the Town of Markham have engaged in efforts to create an intensification corridor along Highway 7. The project is still mostly at the planning stage, although efforts have been made to improve public transit by routing the Viva bus service (characterized by more frequent service, shelters with electronic bus tracing devices, articulated buses and eventually dedicated rights of way) within the corridor. Planning coordination and capacity issues The account of the evolution of nodal policies shows that to modify travel behaviour, nodes must be planned in a fashion that is coherent at three levels: the macro level, which pertains to their sought-after impact at a metropolitan scale; the meso level, which concerns the relationships between nodes and their environment (the city in which they are located, their catchment area, and nearby neighbourhoods);

40 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 32 the micro level, which means their layout and design and the spatial interconnections between their activities. Given the current attention paid to transportation goals the need to promote transit use, cycling and walking, and ensure shorter journeys at the macro scale, we could expect that at a meso scale, equal attention would be paid to the quality of walking, cycling, and public transit connections with the catchment area of a node, and at the micro scale to the creation within nodes of an environment that is stimulating to pedestrians and that ensures that they can easily reach all activities. Table 1 summarizes the historical narrative and shows how different levels of government are responsible for the formulation of policies at different scales. Table 2 shows the evolution of institutional structures over time. Local governments have been for the most part responsible for the adoption of micro- and meso-scale objectives, whereas Metro Toronto and, more recently, the provincial government have largely defined macro-scale goals. This situation accounts for the uneven attention paid to the different scales. For example, since the provincial government has recently driven the planning agenda at the scale of the GGH, attention has focused on metropolitan-wide purposes and features of nodes. The meso- and micro-scale dimensions of nodes have received little consideration by comparison. At other times, the focus was on the meso rather than the macro scale; for example, when Mississauga adopted its city centre policy, the objective was to provide a centre for the city, not to contribute to an overall form of metropolitan development. The most damaging consequences of inter-scalar coordination problems have arisen when planning taking place at one scale has been inconsistent with the goals formulated at another scale. This was notably the case with the Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre, whose largely automobile-oriented environments contradict the function of nodes propounded by Metro Toronto, the OGTA, and present Provincial planning initiatives. Even more serious than coordination problems is the difficulty of bringing planned nodes into existence. Despite 25 years of planning for nodes and the identification of 47 potential nodes in GTA planning documents, only three large suburban mixed-use nodes have been created. Other than Markham Centre, whose core is now under development thirteen years after planning for it began, no new large suburban node has emerged since the 198s. This observation suggests that the favourable conditions for nodal development that were present in the 198s the availability of sites close to rail-based transit and interest on the part of office developers in such sites have waned. Nevertheless, planning interest at all levels of government in this form of development has remained as intense as ever. In consequence, over the last 15 years, the gap between node-related planning proposals and prevailing development patterns has only widened.

41 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 33 Table 1: The evolution of the nodal concept in the Greater Toronto Area Planning exercise Antecedents Juxtaposition of high-density residential developments and retail areas in the suburbs Centres of master planned communities High-density mixed-use developments around subway stations MTARTS (Metropolitan Toronto and Region Transportation Study) Subregional Centres Period From the late 195s onwards From the late 195s to 197s 196s onwards Macro scale: impacts at the metropolitan level No concern for macro scale issues No concern for macro scale issues Favour subway use 1967 Defined as a metropolitan planning tool; decentralization of services meant to reduce the need for transportation Meso scale: relation to the municipality in which the node is located, to catchment areas and surrounding neighbourhoods Provide a market for close-by stores; convenience for apartment dwellers; reduce reliance on the car locally At the top of planned retail hierarchy; help structure master planned communities Little concern for meso scale, i.e. relation with surrounding neighbourhoods Reduction of need for transportation is based on the relation between subregional centres and their catchment areas (portions of the metropolitan region) The Metro Toronto Plan for the Urban Structure, and Mississauga City Centre Scarborough Official Plan amendment designates town centre North York Council approves the concept of centre along Yonge Street The Metro Toronto Subcentre policy: Identifies two major centres (North York Centre and Scarborough Town Centre) and four intermediate centres (Eglinton, St. Clair, Islington/ Kipling, Kennedy) 1968 Little expression of macro-scale concerns 1977 Little expression of macro-scale concerns 198 onwards Metropolitan goals: prevent over-concentration of downtown Toronto jobs and proliferation of auto-oriented suburban office parks; structure suburban areas; provide transit hubs Centre for the municipality Centre for the municipality Little concern for meso scale, i.e. relation with surrounding neighbourhoods Micro scale: layout and design of the node Little consideration for design; poor integration of residential and retail areas apart from some pathways Pathway connections; but large surface parking lots around shopping malls Inserted within the existing grid; mixture of street orientation and landscaped setbacks No consideration of the design of subregional centres or of the integration of activities within them Multi-functionality but no housing; automobile orientation Multi-functional including housing. Doubts about the possibility of achieving pedestrian orientation Sub-centres defined as compact and pedestrian-oriented, but little attention paid to their actual layout and design Implementation/impact Major influence on the form of suburban development in the Toronto metropolitan region; ensures a mixture of residential densities Centres still in existence and functional today: Don Mills, Bramalea, Erin Mills, Meadowvale Two such centres have developed at a high density and adopted a mixed-use pattern: Yonge-St. Clair and Yonge-Eglinton Proposals had little influence on urban development, except perhaps as an inspiration for further plans Attracts mall, offices and public-sector activities Attracts public and private offices, housing and some retailing Two major sub-centres take off; two intermediate sub-centres were already developed; and the two other intermediate sub-centres experience limited growth

42 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 34 Table 1: The evolution of the nodal concept in the Greater Toronto Area (continued) Planning exercise City of Mississauga reports and official plan: proposal of a Mississauga city centre Period onwards Macro scale: impacts at the metropolitan level Little expression of macro-scale concern IBI Group/OGTA (Office for the Greater Toronto Area) Introduction of the term nodes ; identify 29 actual or possible nodes identified onwards No longer concern about downtown Toronto congestion; sustainable development perspective; limit sprawl; shorter journeys; encourage transit use and walking Local plans for nodes with a design emphasis North York Centre, Mississauga City Centre, Markham Central Area Planning District All three plans date from 1994 Smart Growth and Places to Grow Between 24 and 26 nodes; renamed UGCs (Urban Growth Centres); include traditional downtowns and existing or planned suburban mixed-use centres Little concern for the macro scale on the part of these documents 22 Part of smart growth strategy; reduce sprawl by accommodating a share of the growth to be directed towards the built-up area; reduce trip length and encourage walking, cycling and transit ridership, thus reducing congestion; hubs for public transit systems Meso scale: relation to the municipality in which the node is located, to catchment areas and surrounding neighbourhoods Key element of a strategy to become a complete city; attract high-order jobs and become civic, commercial and cultural centre for the city; contribute to encouraging transit use Little concern for relation to surrounding areas and catchment areas Little concern for the meso scale, except for measures taken by North York to prevent encroachment on surrounding neighbourhoods Acknowledges the existence of different types of UGCs; little in terms of meso-scale planning at this time Micro scale: layout and design of the node Little concern expressed about layout and design Little attention paid to layout and design, apart from the mention that nodes must be transit- and pedestrian-oriented Street orientation; retail façades lining sidewalks; do away with surface parking Acknowledges the existence of different types of UGCs; little in terms of micro-scale planning at this time Implementation/impact Successful in attracting activities Enthusiasm on the part of regional and municipal planning agencies for nodes; by 1997, 47 nodes are identified in official plans within the GTA, but relatively few of them materialize; all regional plans give predominance to the creation of nodes North York Centre achieves street orientation objectives largely because it consists of a redevelopment within an existing street network; little evidence of street orientation in Mississauga Centre; Markham City Centre still has to be launched Planning process still in progress

43 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 1 35 Table 2: Evolution of institutional structures Period Metropolitan-wide (with planning relevance)* Outer Metropolitan Area Creation of the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board (MTPB) responsible for metropolitan area planning Creation of outer-suburban regional municipalities: York (1971), Durham (1974), Halton (1974), Hamilton Wentworth (1974), Peel (1974); elimination of MTPB s authority beyond the borders of Metro Office for the Greater Toronto Area: proposes planning concepts, but has no implementation capacity Inner Metropolitan Area Creation of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto (Metro) 1998 Metro Toronto municipalities amalgamated into the new City of Toronto Greater Toronto Services Board: intended to administer services across the Greater Toronto Area and facilitate planning coordination 26 Greater Toronto Transportation Authority: coordination of planning and operation of different modes of transportation across the metropolitan region Outside the Toronto Metropolitan Region (but within the Greater Golden Horseshoe) Creation of the Niagara Regional Municipality (197) and of the Waterloo Regional Municipality (1973) * The provincial government has become involved at different times in metropolitan planning matters, sometimes by setting up a formal agency such as those listed here, in other cases by intervening through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the Ministry of Housing (sometimes combined with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, as it is today), the Ministry of Transportation or, more recently, the Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal.

44 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 36 Part 2: The evolution and present condition of downtowns, nodes, and corridors The ultimate test of any planning initiative is whether or not its recommendations are implemented and if so, the extent to which they achieve their objectives. In examining existing nodes, this part of the report evaluates the successes and failures of nodal planning in the Toronto region. Its findings have also been used to develop the policy recommendations in the final part of the report. In this part of the report, the performance of nodes and other types of study areas is compared with criteria found in plans, and to nodal characteristics described in the literature on urban intensification: inner synergy effects, overall intensification of metropolitan regions, and contribution to a metropolitan-wide reduction in dependence on the automobile (e.g., Bunce, 24; Dieleman and Wegener, 24; Jabareen, 26; Song, 25; Vallance, Perkins and Moore, 25). Selection of study areas The nodes chosen for this study are a sample of designated GGH downtowns, nodes, and corridors that represent different categories of UGCs and corridors designated in Places to Grow. The assessment includes the current condition of these study areas and their performance in light of the objectives pursued by Places to Grow, as well as other criteria used to define well-functioning nodes, such as those introduced in earlier plans. Where possible, it mentions trends in the evolution of nodes. The study includes all four mature nodes in the GGH: Yonge-Eglinton, North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre. By studying areas that are to varying extents functioning as nodes, it is possible to draw conclusions about the way in which nodes actually deliver on the stated benefits of this form of intensification. Two small downtowns are also included Oakville and Kitchener. Oakville was chosen as an example of a downtown area that is generally perceived as successful because of its thriving main-street retail and the way it functions as something of a tourist attraction. Kitchener, by contrast, represents a struggling downtown that has experienced the loss of retail businesses, like so many other downtowns, and where efforts have been made to revitalize the downtown. Downtown Toronto, which is also designated as a UGC in Places to Grow, constitutes another study area. It is the most prominent node in the region and serves as a useful comparison to other nodes. The nodes chosen for study also represent four of the five categories of UGCs described in Places to Grow (see Table 3 and Map 4).

45 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 37 Table 3: Categories of Urban Growth Centres (and Corridors)* Bold-italic indicates UGCs and corridors studied in this report. Categories of Urban Growth Centres UGCs developed within already built-up areas Existing inner and outer suburban nodes originally developed on greenfield sites UGCs to be developed on outer suburban greenfield sites UGCs that include (along with other types of development) traditional downtowns of suburban municipalities Traditional downtowns of self-standing urban areas Corridors Urban Growth Centres Downtown Toronto North York Centre Yonge-Eglinton Etobicoke Centre Mississauga City Centre Scarborough Town Centre Markham Centre Richmond Hill/Langstaff Gateway Vaughan Corporate Centre Downtown Brampton Downtown Burlington Downtown Milton Newmarket Centre Midtown Oakville Downtown Oshawa Downtown Pickering Downtown Barrie Downtown Brantford Downtown Cambridge Downtown Guelph Downtown Hamilton Downtown Kitchener/Uptown Waterloo Downtown Peterborough Downtown St. Catharines Yonge Street corridor Mississauga East corridor * The Urban Growth Centres shown here are those listed in Urban Growth Centres in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Issue 1 (Ontario, 25c). Focus in the study is on the downtown Kitchener portion of the Downtown Kitchener/Uptown Waterloo UGC. The first category consists of UGCs within already built-up areas where density has increased and a functional transformation has occurred. Yonge-Eglinton, North York Centre, and downtown Toronto are examples of this type of node. The second category consists of existing nodes within City of Toronto suburbs and outer suburbs (municipalities outside the City of Toronto but within the metropolitan region s built perimeter) that were originally erected on greenfield sites. Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre exemplify this category. All the nodes in the first and second categories are outcomes of regional or municipal planning processes. UGCs in the third category are those that are proposed for outer-suburban greenfield sites. Because they are not yet in place, this third category is not investigated in this study.

46 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 38 Map 4: Locations of study sites in the Greater Golden Horseshoe WELLINGTON WATERLOO Downtown Kitchener YORK DURHAM 5 1 km Highway 44 Business Park PEEL North York Centre Scarborough Town Centre Highway 41 Business Park (Airport Corporate Centre) Mississauga East Corridor Yonge Street Corridor Yonge & Eglinton Node Downtown Toronto TORONTO HALTON Mississauga City Centre Downtown Oakville a L a k e O n t r i o 5 1 km Study Site Node Study Site Corridor Study Site Business Park Upper-tier Municipality Lower-tier Municipality 21 Built-Up Urban Area Data Sources: National Topographic System, Statistics Canada: Census 21 and Transportation for Tomorrow Survey. Neptis Foundation, 27 The fourth category consists of UGCs that include, along with other types of urban environments, the traditional downtowns of suburban municipalities within or close to the built perimeter of the Toronto region. Oakville is the example chosen to represent this category. The fifth and final category is composed of the traditional downtowns of selfstanding urban areas within the GGH. Kitchener is the representative example here. Two corridors are also included in this analysis, because corridors are intimately tied to the UGC strategy. The first is the Yonge Street corridor, presented by Places to Grow as a model for future high-density/public transit corridors to be repli-

47 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 39 cated across the GGH. The second corridor covers a portion of Mississauga where densities and public transit use are high by outer suburban standards. As defined here, the Mississauga East Corridor includes the largest concentration of highdensity census tracts in the outer suburbs. While Yonge Street represents a mature inner-city corridor, where redevelopment has happened within a traditional urban texture, the Mississauga East corridor shares most features of suburban environments. All the nodes under investigation have been identified in planning documents since at least the 197s, which demonstrates the extent to which Places to Grow has incorporated prior planning policies. The role of downtowns and corridors as instruments of metropolitan planning also predates Places to Grow. Objectives and criteria Part One has shown that, at a macro scale, plans define nodes as a structuring instrument for the metropolitan region, which initially provided an alternative to an urban form perceived as overly centralized and later, to suburban-like dispersion and sprawl. Plans also emphasize the role of nodes in promoting the use of public transit, given their location at points of high transit connectivity. An equally important metropolitan-wide dimension of nodes is their contribution to higher metropolitan density, and thus to the containment of sprawl. At a meso scale, nodes are depicted as focal points for their community (defined broadly as either groupings of neighbourhoods or an entire municipality). Micro-scale definitions of nodes emphasize their compactness and pedestrian connectivity. Plans pay far less attention to the formulation of corridor development objectives. Corridors are usually presented as means of connecting nodes to each other, and of creating environments that combine density and high-quality public transit services. Nodal development objectives are not always quantified. Examples of quantifiable goals include references to the minimum size of nodes, as in the 1994 Metro Toronto official plan, which specified that major nodes should contain at least 25, jobs. Another quantifiable goal is found in municipal official plans that set modal share objectives highly favourable to public transit. For example, the goal in North York Centre was to reduce rush-hour automobile shares to 33 per cent. In Scarborough Town Centre, planners aspired to raise the transit proportion of commuting journeys to 55 per cent, and the objective in Mississauga City Centre was to achieve a 5 per cent transit modal share (Mississauga, 1994b; North York, 1991; 1994; Scarborough, 1996). Recently, Places to Grow has formulated minimum employment and residential density thresholds for Urban Growth Centres with a 231 horizon: 4 people and jobs per hectare for City of Toronto Urban Growth Centres; 2 for the remainder of Greater Toronto Area Urban Growth Centres, as well as downtown Hamilton, downtown Kitchener, and uptown Waterloo; and 15 for other downtown Urban Growth Centres outside the Greater Toronto Area (Ontario, 26a: 16 17).

48 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 4 Method The performance of nodes, small downtowns, and corridors is measured against different points of comparison: the present or former municipality, urban zone, or metropolitan region in which the study areas are located, and two highwayoriented business parks chosen to represent conventional suburban employment areas. Although a study area in its own right, downtown Toronto also serves as a benchmark against which other study areas are profiled. The analysis begins with an investigation of social and economic trends in the nodes: demographic changes, the socioeconomic profile of residents, and the evolution and nature of employment. The purpose of this part of the analysis is to determine who lives in nodes, what kinds of jobs are available in nodes, and what these findings suggest about kinds of households and businesses attracted to different kinds of nodes and why. The remainder of Part Two investigates land use in the study areas (density and morphology) and the impact of these land use patterns on travel behaviour. The purpose of this part of the analysis is to clarify the variations among the different categories of nodes and identify obstacles to meeting their objectives, particularly at the micro and meso scales. The data analyzed in this study come from different sources. Land use information derives from measurements performed on digitized aerial photographs (see Appendix C). Census data are used to gauge density, demographic change, the amount and types of occupations present in the study areas, and the socioeconomic status of area residents (see Appendixes A and B). The socioeconomic information serves to determine the effects of different factors of attraction (lifestyle versus affordability) on residential location choices made by households living in the study areas. It also points to future strategies promoting the residential development of UGCs. Data on trips to the different areas selected in this study and on home-based trips made by study area residents come from the Transportation Tomorrow Survey (see Appendix D). Apart from some time series and built environment measurements, all data originate from the 21 census or the 21 Transportation Tomorrow Survey. Results from a 1999 survey of workers in offices in three of the large nodes (North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre) are used to determine the level of internal capture prevailing within these nodes, that is, the extent to which office workers use the facilities in the nodes (Filion, 21). The survey also gauged the modal shares of the trips these employees made within the node, as well as their intra-nodal shopping and eating habits. Finally, data on the evolution of office floor space, used to assess the capacity of study areas to attract office employment, originate from surveys carried out by Altus InSite, Inc.

49 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 41 Table 4: Population and dwelling changes in the study areas, Downtown Toronto 1986 Population 21 Population 1986 Dwellings 21 Dwellings Per Cent Population Change Per Cent Dwelling Change 49,667 73,983 26,895 41, Yonge-Eglinton 22,15 25,74 13,43 14, North York Centre Scarborough Town Centre Mississauga City Centre Downtown Oakville Downtown Kitchener Yonge Street Corridor Mississauga East Corridor 3,535 47,315 12,77 2, ,14 3,854 7,67 1, ,445 5,528 11,13 18, ,815 2, , ,327 29,338 12,125 13, ,89 78,687 37,65 41, ,449 11,974 27,565 34, Source: Statistics Canada, 1986 and 21 censuses. Throughout this part of the report, study areas are compared to each other and to averages from their respective present or former municipality: the Kitchener CMA for downtown Kitchener, the Town of Oakville for downtown Oakville, the City of Mississauga for Mississauga City Centre and the Mississauga East corridor, the former City of North York for North York Centre, and the former City of Scarborough for Scarborough Town Centre. Measurements from Yonge-Eglinton, downtown Toronto, and the Yonge Street corridor are related to those of their urban zone, the inner city composed of the former cities of Toronto, York, and East York. As defined here, the inner city corresponds generally to the portion of the metropolitan region built before For more information on the definition of study area boundaries for the purpose of analysis, see Appendixes A and B. A thorny methodological issue concerns the extent of the areas under study. This problem and the methods used to resolve it for the purposes of this report are described in Appendixes A and B. Demographic changes Table 4 shows accelerated demographic growth in most study areas from 1986 to 21. The highest rates are in Mississauga City Centre, North York Centre, downtown Toronto, downtown Oakville, Scarborough Town Centre, and the Mississauga East corridor. Had 26 statistics been available at the time of research,

50 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 42 growth levels would have been substantially higher in downtown Toronto, North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre, all sites of intense condominium development over the past few years. In contrast to the fast-growing study areas, further development in and around the Yonge Street corridor and Yonge-Eglinton node is hindered by their proximity to low-density neighbourhoods, which are well protected by zoning by-laws and politically sophisticated residents. Recently, however, new high-rise condominium developments have been approved in the Yonge-Eglinton node. The situation in downtown Kitchener is different. Land available for redevelopment is plentiful, owing to recent waves of deindustrialization, but the appeal of the downtown and surrounding neighbourhoods for housing developers and potential residents is limited. The appearance of the downtown and the nature of its activities have deterred residential development (Bunting et al., 2; Filion, Bunting and City of Kitchener Planning Department, 1998). Socioeconomic profiles This section addresses aspects of study areas that do not correspond directly to objectives contained in plans or associated in the literature with urban intensification. It describes the socioeconomic profiles of the study areas and thereby identifies the household types most likely to opt for downtown, node, or corridor living. By identifying markets that are attracted to the housing and urban forms of study areas, this section offers guidance for policies promoting the further development of downtowns, nodes, and corridors. Income As shown on Table 5, the highest incomes are recorded in downtown Oakville and the Yonge Street corridor. The Yonge Street corridor income levels surpass the inner-city norm by a large margin in all measures of income (average and median individual and household income), whereas in downtown Oakville only average individual income stands well above the already-elevated Town of Oakville income values. High incomes mirror housing types present in these two areas (a high proportion of single-family homes relative to most other study areas) and a positive perception of these sectors, consistent with the type of retailing and services they offer. Note, however, that the two areas (downtown Oakville even more so than the Yonge Street corridor) exhibit the largest income spreads among investigated downtowns, nodes, and corridors, as suggested by median values that are much lower than average values. They therefore contain both rich and poor households. Yonge-Eglinton and downtown Toronto come next on the income scale. In both cases, average and median individual incomes exceed the inner-city norm, but

51 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 43 Table 5: Average and median income of individuals and households living in the study areas and their urban zone and municipalities, and ratios of study area values relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities Average Individual Income ($) Median Individual Income ($) Average Household Income ($) Median Household Income ($) Downtown Toronto 52,377 35,263 8,74 54,696 Inner City 42,496 25,315 77,727 49,259 Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Yonge-Eglinton 54,485 39,4 85,229 51,8 Inner City 42,497 25,315 77,727 49,259 Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre 35,378 24,317 68,12 47,52 Former City of North York 34,754 21,198 74,693 49,61 Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre 26,279 21,95 57,754 49,5 Former City of Scarborough 26,714 21,252 61,794 54,932 Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre 28,792 25,5 63,8 55,355 City of Mississauga 35,314 27,279 82,86 71,18 Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville 64,915 34,917 16,93 59,157 Town of Oakville 46,211 32,81 1,86 86,561 Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville Downtown Kitchener 26,771 22,571 45,862 39,485 Kitchener CMA 31,127 25,156 64,431 51,99 Ratio: Downtown Kitchener / Kitchener CMA Yonge Street Corridor 67,67 42, ,125 64,459 Inner City 42,497 25,315 77,727 49,259 Ratio: Yonge Street Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 29,718 25,121 67,479 59,82 City of Mississauga 35,314 27,279 82,86 71,18 Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / Mississauga Source: Statistics Canada, 21 Census. average and median household incomes are only slightly above this norm. This finding reflects household size; the two study areas have the smallest households among the areas under study. 8 The downtown Toronto income spread is lower than that of the Yonge Street corridor. 8 Other things being equal, the bigger a household, the larger is its number of income earners.

52 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 44 Income levels place North York Centre between the four richest and the four poorest study areas. The lowest incomes are found in Scarborough Town Centre, Mississauga City Centre, the Mississauga East corridor, and downtown Kitchener. Nearly all income measures for these districts are inferior to those of their respective municipality. Low incomes can be explained by lower average housing costs in these nodes than in the rest of the municipality. In downtown Kitchener, there is also the negative perception of the downtown and affluent residents preference for suburban living in a highly dispersed metropolitan region (Bunting and Filion, 1999; Filion, Bunting and Warriner, 1999). Small differences between average and median incomes within these four study areas suggest a narrow income spread, in contrast with the wealthy study areas. Income distributions signal the existence of a strong link between income categories and types of study areas. The next tables identify similar relationships across other socioeconomic variables. Education Table 6 shows the proportion of people in each study area holding a university degree. This pattern closely resembles the income distribution pattern in the previous table, with one exception. Despite its high income, downtown Oakville posts a proportion of people with a university degree that is only at the middle of the range for the different study areas. One explanation for this observation is the wide income spread noted in this district. Another is the advanced age of its residents. Employment status Equally consistent with income patterns is the distribution of types of employment held by people living in the study areas, shown in Table 7. As expected, there is a clear concentration of managerial occupations in the high-income study areas, and more sales-related occupations in lower-income areas. The correspondence between income and occupation is not perfect, however. Downtown Oakville, the highest-income study area, presents one of the larger proportions of sales-related occupations. It is interesting to note the over-representation of occupations in social science, education, government, and religion as well as occupations in art, culture, recreation, and sport in the most central study areas: downtown Toronto, the Yonge- Eglinton node, and the Yonge Street corridor. Ley has identified a predilection on the part of the new middle class, which includes the categories of employment cited above, for central area living (Ley, 1996). Immigration Downtown Toronto residents include a proportion of immigrants (defined broadly as people born outside Canada) that approximates that of the inner city (see Table 8). Still, non-immigrants outnumber immigrants in this district. In the metropolitan region that posts the highest presence of immigrants in Canada, it is important to gauge the attraction of different types of study areas on this category of residents.

53 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 45 Table 6: Highest level of education of residents, study areas and their urban zone, and ratios of study area percentages relative to those of their urban zone* Less than Grade 9 Grade 9 13 College University Degree Downtown Toronto 3.5% 12.% 16.7% 51.1% Inner City 1.2% 2.6% 18.2% 36.1% Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Yonge-Eglinton 1.8% 12.4% 17.9% 51.6% Inner City 1.1% 2.5% 18.2% 36.1% Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre 4.5% 19.9% 17.3% 4.% Former City of North York 11.8% 25.7% 18.5% 27.3% Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre 9.2% 32.9% 19.4% 21.2% Former City of Scarborough 9.8% 31.7% 22.3% 19.4% Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre 8.5% 23.% 33.6% 27.% City of Mississauga 7.4% 26.8% 23.8% 24.1% Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville 1.3% 18.1% 27.9% 33.4% Town of Oakville 4.3% 21.4% 26.% 31.% Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville Downtown Kitchener 1.1% 33.4% 22.3% 17.2% Kitchener CMA 8.5% 32.9% 24.% 17.% Ratio: Downtown Kitchener / Kitchener CMA Yonge Street Corridor 1.7% 12.4% 16.9% 53.5% Inner City 11.1% 21.9% 18.3% 33.5% Ratio: Yonge Street Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 9.4% 28.3% 22.4% 21.7% City of Mississauga 7.4% 26.8% 23.8% 24.1% Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / Mississauga Source: Statistics Canada, 21 Census. * Sums of percentages do not add to 1% because some educational categories are not included in the table.

54 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 46 Table 7: Per cent residents of study areas and their urban zone and municipalities according to occupation, and ratios of study area percentages relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities Management Business, Finance & Administration Natural & Applied Sciences Health Social Science, Education, Gov t & Religion Art, Culture, Recreation, Sport Sales Trades, Transport, Equipment Primary Industries Processing, Manufacturing, Utilities Downtown Toronto 16.6% 21.4% 11.4% 5.8% 14.2% 9.9% 16.7% 2.3%.3% 1.4% Inner City 14.1% 19.4% 8.7% 4.5% 11.3% 8.6% 2.7% 7.4%.5% 4.8% Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Yonge-Eglinton 19.3% 24.6% 11.8% 5.1% 13.5% 6.6% 14.8% 3.2%.2%.8% Inner City 14.1% 19.4% 8.7% 4.5% 11.3% 8.6% 2.7% 7.4%.5% 4.8% Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre 19.2% 22.5% 14.1% 5.3% 8.1% 4.3% 17.9% 5.%.5% 3.% Former City of North York 11.7% 21.5% 9.8% 4.9% 7.4% 3.1% 21.1% 1.4%.4% 9.6% Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre 9.8% 23.7% 8.9% 3.4% 4.9% 2.2% 21.8% 1.4%.6% 14.3% Former City of Scarborough 9% 24.6% 8.6% 4.3% 5.6% 2.5% 22.6% 11.5%.4% 11% Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre 12.% 23.1% 1.8% 4.2% 5.2% 1.9% 22.7% 1.8%.2% 9.1% City of Mississauga 13.4% 22.7% 8.6% 3.9% 5.9% 2.2% 21.3% 12.8%.6% 8.7% Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville 27.3% 17% 5.1% 5.1% 11.5% 5.1% 22.1% 4.7% 2.% % Town of Oakville 19.2% 21.5% 8.7% 4.2% 8% 3.4% 21.8% 8.2%.8% 4.3% Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville Downtown Kitchener 9.9% 15.6% 6.1% 2.9% 9.% 3.7% 22.2% 16.2%.8% 13.5% Kitchener CMA 1.6% 17.3% 6.8% 3.7% 7.4% 2.4% 21.4% 16.4% 1.5% 12.5% Ratio: Downtown Kitchener / Kitchener CMA Yonge St. Corridor 2.9% 23.1% 9.7% 5.4% 14.6% 8.1% 14.5% 2.6%.2%.8% Inner City 14.1% 19.4% 8.7% 4.5% 11.3% 8.6% 2.7% 7.4%.5% 4.8% Ratio: Yonge St. Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 1.6% 22.9% 8.7% 3.2% 5.5% 2.1% 22.3% 13.5%.4% 1.8% City of Mississauga 13.4% 22.7% 8.6% 3.9% 5.9% 2.2% 21.3% 12.8%.6% 8.7% Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / Mississauga Source: Statistics Canada, 21 Census.

55 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 47 Table 8: Per cent of residents of study areas and their urban zone and municipalities who are non-immigrants and immigrants, and ratios of study area percentages relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities Non-immigrants Immigrants Downtown Toronto 57.3% 42.7% Inner City 56.1% 43.9% Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Yonge-Eglinton 68.% 32.% Inner City 56.1% 43.9% Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre 42.3% 57.7% Former City of North York 42.8% 57.2% Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre 39.5% 6.5% Former City of Scarborough 44.3% 55.7% Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre 38.7% 61.3% City of Mississauga 52.2% 47.8% Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville 72.5% 27.5% Town of Oakville 72.1% 27.9% Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville Downtown Kitchener 78.1% 21.9% Kitchener CMA 77.8% 22.2% Ratio: Downtown Kitchener / Kitchener CMA Yonge Street Corridor 7.6% 29.4% Inner City 56.1% 43.9% Ratio: Yonge Street Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 45.7% 54.3% City of Mississauga 52.2% 47.8% Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / Mississauga Source: Statistics Canada, 21 Census. The proportion of immigrants is lower in the Yonge-Eglinton node and overall in the Yonge Street corridor. But the situation is entirely different in the other nodes and in the Mississauga East corridor. In these districts, immigrants represent the majority of the population, as high as nearly two-thirds of Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre residents, and their proportions equal or exceed municipal norms. These statistics correspond to a stronger presence of immigrants in the inner suburbs and some parts of the outer suburbs than in the inner city.

56 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 48 Proportions of immigrants in downtown Oakville and downtown Kitchener correspond to those of their respective municipality, which are much lower than those in the urban zones and municipalities to which the other study areas belong. Household size and composition The sub-section examines the attraction of study areas on the different genders and types of households defined in terms of size and life cycle. This information is important to the understanding of present and future residential growth levels in the categories of study areas under investigation. Table 9 indicates an over-representation of females, at or above 3 per cent, in four study areas: Yonge-Eglinton, North York Centre, the Yonge Street corridor, and downtown Oakville. We will see that in the latter case, a high proportion of elderly residents contributes to the gender imbalance. Interestingly, none of the study areas exhibit a comparable imbalance in favour of males. Only downtown Toronto registers a very slight (.9 per cent) over-representation of males. This same table reveals an under-representation of the 19 age group in each study area relative to its urban zone or municipality. The proportion of this age group is at its lowest in downtown Toronto, the Yonge-Eglinton node, and downtown Oakville. On the other hand, it approximates the municipal average in Scarborough Town Centre, Mississauga City Centre, the Mississauga East corridor, the Yonge Street corridor, and downtown Kitchener. These findings do not support a relationship between lower residential density and the presence of children, although it is generally assumed that families with children prefer low-density forms of housing. This assumption is at odds with findings from Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre, two study areas where high-rise apartment units account for over 9 per cent of all housing (see Table 14). More likely is an association between a lower socioeconomic status and the presence of children in high-density housing. Downtown Toronto and the four nodes have higher proportions of the 2 34 age group relative to their urban zone or municipality (less so in Scarborough Town Centre). In the other study areas, the presence of this age category is closer to the urban zone or municipal norm. Downtown Oakville is the only study area where people aged 2 34 are under-represented relative to the municipal average. The presence in the study areas of residents belonging to the next age group (35 49) approximates the average of their urban zone or municipalities. With the exception of a substantial over-representation of people aged 5 64 in downtown Oakville, the ratios of people aged 5 64 relative to urban zone and municipal norms range from.91 to The proportion of downtown Oakville residents who are 65 years old and over is well above that of the other study areas (3.5 per cent versus 16.7 per cent in North York Centre, which records the second highest level) and 2.79 times higher than the Town of Oakville level. Despite its presence at the lower end of study

57 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 49 Table 9: Household size and per cent of residents in study areas and their urban zone and municipalities in different gender and age groups, and ratios of study area values relative to those of their urban zone and municipalities Household Size Males Females Age 19 Age 2 34 Age Age 5 64 Downtown Toronto % 49.1% 9.1% 39.4% 24.6% 15.1% 11.9% Inner City % 51.2% 19.6% 27.6% 25.9% 14.8% 12.% Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Age Yonge-Eglinton % 54.7% 12.6% 35.1% 25.8% 14.8% 11.6% Inner City % 51.2% 19.6% 27.6% 25.9% 14.8% 12.% Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre % 52.9% 18.5% 25.9% 23.1% 15.8% 16.7% Former City of North York % 52.3% 24.5% 21.7% 23.% 15.4% 15.5% Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre % 51.2% 25.% 22.7% 22.8% 14.5% 15.1% Former City of Scarborough % 51.8% 26.% 21.% 24.2% 16.% 12.8% Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre % 51.1% 24.8% 26.2% 25.1% 15.1% 9.% City of Mississauga % 5.7% 28.5% 21.5% 26.2% 15.4% 8.5% Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville % 56.3% 13.1% 15.6% 18.3% 22.8% 3.5% Town of Oakville % 51.3% 28.6% 17.7% 26.7% 16.1% 1.9% Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville Downtown Kitchener % 5.8% 21.6% 25.4% 24.2% 13.6% 15.2% Kitchener CMA % 5.8% 27.5% 22.% 24.5% 14.8% 11.2% Ratio: Downtown Kitchener / Kitchener CMA Yonge Street Corridor % 54.4% 16.2% 28.6% 25.3% 16.4% 13.4% Inner City % 51.2% 19.6% 27.6% 26.1% 14.8% 12.% Ratio: Yonge St. Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 3 49% 51% 24.8% 22.1% 24.4% 17.% 11.6% City of Mississauga % 5.7% 28.5% 21.5% 26.2% 15.4% 8.5% Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / Mississauga Source: Statistics Canada, 21 Census.

58 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 5 Table 1: Study area scores on different socioeconomic variables relative to each other Individual Income Household Income Education Immigrants Household Size Age 19 Age 2 34 Age Age 5 64 Downtown Toronto Yonge-Eglinton North York Centre Scarborough Town Centre Mississauga City Centre Downtown Oakville Downtown Kitchener Yonge Street Corridor Mississauga East Corridor Inner City and Suburban Study Areas Downtown Toronto, Yonge-Eglinton, Yonge Street Corridor North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, Mississauga City Centre, Mississauga East Corridor = Low = Medium = High Age 65+ area percentages, Mississauga City Centre still posts a higher proportion of elderly people than the City of Mississauga as a whole. Socioeconomic summary Table 1 summarizes the socioeconomic findings. Each study area is ranked relative to the other areas on a three-point scale (low, medium, high) for each socioeconomic variable introduced in this subsection. The number of low, medium, and high rankings allocated to each variable varies to reflect how the different study areas score on this variable. For example, if many study areas rank high for a given variable and a few are found somewhat and much lower on the scale, Table 9 would present many highs and a small number of mediums and lows for this variable. Two geographical categories stand out: the inner-city study areas (which include downtown Toronto, the Yonge-Eglinton node, and the Yonge Street Corridor) and the inner and outer suburban nodes and corridor (North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, Mississauga City Centre and the Mississauga East corridor).

59 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 51 As shown at the bottom of Table 1, the population in this first group of study areas is characterized by medium/high individual and household income, high education, and a medium/low presence of immigrants. In addition, these areas are characterized by small households and a high/medium proportion of people aged The second grouping is characterized by lower income and education levels than the first. It includes higher proportions of immigrants and larger households. There are more children and youth, but fewer people aged 2 49 in these suburban study areas. The socioeconomic profiles of downtown Oakville and downtown Kitchener differ from each other and from the above categories. Oakville is characterized by high incomes and an elderly population and Kitchener by low incomes and a larger number of families. The cleavage between social status in inner-city and suburban study areas may be related to the attraction of downtown Toronto and other inner-city locales for certain types of households, characterized by high income, education, and occupational status. We can infer from the predominance of small households and from prior associations established between, on the one hand, high education and certain occupations and, on the other, a taste for inner-city living, that for a certain sector of the population, high-density living in an inner-city environment with good-quality public transit and a walkable environment is a matter of lifestyle choice. This finding suggests a lifestyle-driven residential-sorting process at work in inner-city nodes (see Bagley, 22, Mokhtarian and Kitamura, 22; Krizek, 23). The situation is different in the suburbs. Lower incomes, lower levels of education, and lower occupational status, and the presence of larger households with more children and youth suggest that many households have opted for these locations for reasons of housing cost rather than lifestyle. Differences in the reasons for choosing the inner city vs. the suburbs are reflected in the relation between individual incomes within these two types of areas and their respective urban zone or municipality. Individual incomes are lower in suburban nodes and the Mississauga East corridor than their respective municipal average (with the exception of North York Centre), while the opposite holds true for inner-city study areas. Neither the suburban nodes (with the possible exception of North York Centre) nor the Mississauga East corridor provide an environment conducive to walking or that generates strong synergistic effects between different functions, including housing. Poor pedestrian conditions prevent the residents of Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre from connecting easily with the numerous activities these nodes contain, and thereby from fully benefiting from living within a node. The study areas are further differentiated by the occupations of their residents. Downtown Toronto, the Yonge-Eglinton node, North York Centre, the Yonge Street corridor, and, to a lesser extent, Scarborough Town Centre, contain higher

60 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 52 proportions of people in managerial occupations than their respective urban zone or municipality. When downtown Kitchener is added and Scarborough Town Centre is removed from the analysis, the distribution of people in occupations related to the social sciences, education, government, and religion is similar. On the other hand, sales-related occupations equal or exceed the urban zone or municipal norm in Mississauga City Centre, downtown Oakville, downtown Kitchener, and the Mississauga East corridor. The proportion of people in occupations related to processing, manufacturing, and utilities, which is well below urban zone and municipal norms in downtown Toronto, the Yonge-Eglinton node, North York Centre, downtown Oakville, and the Yonge Street corridor, is above these norms in Scarborough Town Centre, Mississauga City Centre, downtown Kitchener, and the Mississauga East corridor. These findings also point to differences between inner-city and suburban study areas. The inner-city/suburban contrast should not conceal the existence of common socioeconomic features that distinguish most of these areas from their respective surroundings: In every study area, household size is smaller than that of the overall urban zone or municipality. In every case, with the exception of downtown Toronto, there is an overrepresentation of women in the population of study areas. Downtown Toronto, the nodes, and the Yonge Street corridor all register education levels considerably above those of the urban zone or municipality to which they belong. Even the two nodes with relatively low incomes Mississauga City Centre and Scarborough Town Centre contain relatively high proportions of university graduates among their residents. Employment trends Office space Office development plays an important role in the growth of nodes and their ability to meet their planning goals. Because office employment lends itself to high density and can co-exist easily with other land uses thanks to a relative absence of negative externalities, it is ideally suited to the density and mixed-use objectives of nodes. Until recently, office building construction was an active sector of the economy that contributed to the development of nodes. Table 11 shows the evolution of office space between 197 and 25 in downtown Toronto and the four nodes under investigation: the Yonge-Eglinton node, North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre. For comparison purposes, data for the GTA are also presented.

61 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 53 Table 11: Evolution of office space in the GTMA,* downtown Toronto, and nodes, 197 to 25 GTMA Downtown Toronto Yonge-Eglinton Square Metres % Change Square Metres % Change % of GTMA Square Metres % Change % of GTMA 197 4,55,837 2,445, , ,547, ,353, , ,12, ,912, , ,63, ,792, , ,412, ,631, , ,85, ,38, , ,421, ,45, , ,249, ,456, , North York Centre Scarborough Town Centre Mississauga City Centre Square Metres % Change % of GTMA Square Metres % Change % of GTMA Square Metres % Change % of GTMA 197 NA NA 2, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Source: Altus InSite Research. 27 Altus InSite. * The GTMA corresponds to the built up area of the GTA (the Regional Municipalities of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham, and the City of Toronto). Office development in nodes must be viewed in the context of GTA-wide trends, characterized by years of accelerated construction until 199, when the pace of office growth slowed down. The post-1995 period is marked by particularly low office completion rates. The recent decline may be attributed to over-construction during the 198s, an increase in the number of small office buildings (less than 1,858 m 2 or 2, ft 2 ), which fall under the size threshold for the buildings from which Table 11 s data are derived, an increase in the number of people working from home, and a transformation of the Toronto region economy that favours service employment more than offices (Illegems and Verbeke, 23; Lang, 23). Whatever the cause, the decline in the construction of medium-sized and large office buildings has important consequences for land use planning and the development of mixed-use centres such as nodes and UGCs.

62 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 54 As Table 11 shows, office development in downtown Toronto largely conforms to the GTA pattern: rapid expansion followed by a substantial slowdown in completion rates. However, several differences set downtown office trends apart from metropolitan-wide trends. One is a slower office development rate from 1975 to 199, responsible for a gradual decline in the share of GTA office space found in downtown Toronto. Another is the near standstill in office construction in downtown Toronto since Three nodes, Yonge-Eglinton, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre, have experienced a total absence of office construction since In fact, the Yonge-Eglinton node and Scarborough Town Centre have seen little office growth since 199. As a result, the proportion of metropolitan-wide office space contained in these nodes has declined. The Yonge-Eglinton node reached a peak of 4.4 per cent in 1975; the present proportion is 2.5 per cent. In Scarborough Town Centre the highest proportion of metropolitan office space was achieved in 199; it has since declined from 1.8 to 1.5 per cent. Mississauga City Centre, which fared a little better than the other nodes, held a maximum of 2 per cent of the metropolitan office space in 199 and 1995; this proportion has since fallen to 1.8 per cent. Office space trends in North York Centre have diverged from those in the three other nodes. For one, accelerated office development ended later, in For another, the node has experienced a recent surge in office growth, thanks to the construction of a 5,166 m 2, 21-storey building in 24. A further illustration of recent office floor space trends is shown in Maps 5 and 6. The GTMA contains over 14.8 million m 2 of commercial office space, of which 3.8 million has been constructed since 199. Buildings of over 1,m 2 of floor space account for half of all office buildings and 8 per cent of all floor space constructed since A 25 Canadian Urban Institute study for the Toronto Office Coalition indicates that between 1993 and 25, 62 per cent of new office floor space was constructed in non-transit-supportive office parks. Less than 6 per cent was constructed in commercial subcentres, including North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre (CUI, 25: Table 2 1). The Growth Plan seeks to attract office buildings larger than 1, m 2 to areas served by existing or planned higher-order transit, which the Plan defines as heavy and light rail or buses in their own rights-of-way. The two maps show the location of office floor space built after 199 in buildings larger and smaller than 1, m 2. In each map, floor space has been aggregated up to a 1-km grid. Each coloured square on the map indicates the presence of at least one building; the darker the colour, the more floor space within the square. The maps indicate that, with the exception of downtown Toronto and North York Centre, office space has been added in areas that are not served by higher-order transit. Rather, highway access is currently the primary determinant of office location. The two major 9 Dataset includes all buildings over 2, ft 2 (1,858 m 2 ). Government and institutional buildings are excluded.

63 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 55 Map 5: Major office floor space constructed (buildings less than 1,m 2 ) QEW HIGHWAY CORRIDOR 5 1 km MEADOWVALE BUSINESS PARK AREA NORTH YORK CENTRE DOWNTOWN TORONTO PEARSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AREA 2 Office Floor Space (m ) by 1km grid cell 1,858-25, 25,1-6, 6,1-15, 15,1-5, L a k e 47, 7 AND 47 BUSINESS PARK AREA O n t a r i o 24 Built-Up Urban Area Upper-Tier Municipal Boundary Major Road or Highway GO Rail Station Subway / RT Map 6: Major office floor space constructed (buildings more than 1,m 2 ) How to read Maps 5 and 6: These maps employ an approach originated by Lang (23), who mapped the location of office floor space for 13 American metropolitan areas. To create the maps, the region is divided into a grid of one-square kilometre cells, within which office floor space is summed. The darker the colour of a cell, the more floor space it contains. This gives an impression of the clustering or dispersion of floor space that a map of establishments (which may be of any floor area size) would fail to present. It should be emphasized that for a cell to appear on the map, it must contain at least one establishment. Note that the datasets created by brokers do not consistently contain nonleased space. This includes hospitals, universities, and buildings wholly owned by governments. 5 1 km MEADOWVALE BUSINESS PARK AREA 2 Office Floor Space (m ) by 1km grid cell 1, - 25, 25,1-6, 6,1-15, 15,1-5, NORTH YORK CENTRE DOWNTOWN TORONTO PEARSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AREA L a k e 47, 7 AND 47 BUSINESS PARK AREA 24 Built-Up Urban Area Upper-Tier Municipal Boundary Major Road or Highway GO Station Subway / RT O n t a r i o Source: Built-up Urban Area: Neptis Foundation, June/August 24. The 24 built-up urban area is derived from 24 Landsat Thematic Mapper 5 imagery. Municipal Boundaries: Statistics Canada, 21. Major Roads and Highways: National Road Network, 25. GO Stations: GO Transit, 25. Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Subways (including Scarborough RT): TTC, 25. Hydrography: National Topographic System, 1:5, & 1:25,, Office floor space data was generously provided to the Neptis Foundation by Altus InSite,

64 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 56 concentrations of office floor space that have emerged since 199 are at Pearson Airport and the nexus of Highways 44, 7, and 47 both off the major transit grid. Meadowvale and, to some extent, the QEW corridor in Oakville illustrate the potential for linking office development to the GO rail system. Overall, Table 11 and Maps 5 and 6 reflect a deceleration in office development and increasing preference on the part of those who build and occupy offices for dispersed rather than concentrated, high-density locations. Office construction trends contrast sharply with the present surge in high-density residential development. It will be difficult for the nodes to achieve their mixed-use and public transit objectives if they cannot attract more office development. Office jobs are important in generating trips to and from nodes, and increases in the number of such jobs provide an opportunity to improve transit services and modal shares. In addition, the concentration of large numbers of workers in office buildings fosters synergistic effects with shops, restaurants, and entertainment establishments. 1 If current office growth and office location tendencies persist, not only will the further development of existing nodes be thwarted, but prospects for new UGCs will be bleak. Occupation profiles Table 12 shows the occupation categories of employees of workplaces in all the study areas, as well as in the Airport Corporate Centre (along Highway 41) and the Highway 44-Steeles Avenue business parks and the GTA as a whole. The most remarkable finding is the absence of a clear employment hierarchy between downtown Toronto and most of the other study areas, which would have suggested the existence of a front office back office relationship between central and more peripheral locations. Downtown Toronto, the Yonge-Eglinton node, the Yonge Street corridor, North York Centre, Mississauga City Centre, the Mississauga East corridor, and downtown Oakville all contain roughly similar proportions of management jobs. 11 Specialized and professional jobs, such as those belonging to the natural and applied sciences, and to the health and social science categories, are also well represented in several study areas. Similarities in categories of employment do not necessarily translate into firms that are alike, however. Gad observed a tendency for the headquarters of Canadian firms to locate in downtown Toronto, whereas the head offices of subsidiaries were more likely to opt for suburban locations (Gad, 1991). The study areas that perform worst in terms of employment status are Scarborough Town Centre and downtown Kitchener, both of which have a low score for man- 1 If office under-development impedes multi-functionality and adversely affects public transit use, office over-development can endanger mixed-use and the 24-hour activity of study areas by crowding out other activities. 11 Management is a better indicator of higher-order occupations than the business, finance, and administration category, because this latter group is largely composed of secretarial and clerical jobs.

65 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 57 Table 12: Employment by occupation in workplaces located in the study areas Occupation Type Downtown Toronto Yonge-Eglinton Yonge Street Corridor North York Centre Scarborough Town Centre Mississauga City Centre Mississauga East Corridor Downtown Oakville Downtown Kitchener Airport Corporate Centre Highway 44- Steeles Greater Toronto Area Type A: Management 62, % 3, % 8, % 5, % 2, % 3, % 3, % % 2,75 1.9% % 8, % 343, % Type B: Business, Finance and Administration 123, % 6, % 13, % 13,25 39.% 8,7 29.8% 6,19 26.% 5, % 1,1 32.9% 6, % % 12, % 565, % Type C: Natural and Applied Science 4,85 1.8% 2,465 1.% 4,78 9.1% 3,65 1.7% 1, % 1,75 7.2% 1,75 5.3% % 1, % % 7, % 26,9 8.3% Type D: Health % % 2,16 4.1% 1,53 4.5% 2,155 8% % % % 1,94 7.7% 36.6% 51 1% 18,55 4.3% Type E: Social Science, Education, Government and Religion 36,65 9.9% 1, % 4,65 8.8% 3,1 8.9% 2,95 7.7% 1,83 7.7% 2, % % 2,14 8.4% % 1,95 2.2% 193, 7.7% Type F: Arts, Culture, Recreation, Sport 18, % 1, % 3,65 5.8% % % % % 2 6.% % % % 8,95 3.2% Type G: Sales and Services 58, % 5, % 11, % 5, % 5, % 7, % 5,6 25.% 1,35 31% 4,815 19% % 7, % 531, % Type H: Trades, Transport, Equipment 8,44 2.3% 2,25 8.2% 2,95 5.5% % 1,67 6.2% % 1,38 6.8% % 2,23 8.8% % 4,57 9.2% 246,75 9.8% Type I: Primary Industry 475.1% 45.2% 11.2% 11.3% 6.2% 1.4% 7.3% 1.3% 55.2% 155.3% 65.1% 18,15.7% Type J: Manufacturing, Utilities 3,845 1.% 145.6% 48.9% 285.8% 2,25 8.2% % % 1.3% 2,32 9.2% % 4, % 29,4 8.4% Total 371,325 1% 24,74 1.1% 52,55 1% 33,965 1% 27,45 1% 23,84 1.2% 2, % 3, % 25,34 1% % 49, % 2,52, % Source: Statistics Canada, special tabulations.

66 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 58 agement occupations. They do, however, contain many specialized and professional occupations. The relative importance of retailing in the different study areas is mirrored in the proportion of employees in sales and service occupations. For example, among the three mature suburban nodes, North York Centre ranks lowest and Mississauga City Centre highest for the proportion of occupations in this category. The absence of the front office back office relationship in the case of downtown Toronto and the nodes extends to the expressway-oriented business parks. There is no evidence of lower employment status in these parks relative to downtown Toronto or the nodes. In fact, the proportion of management occupations in the two business parks is slightly higher than that of downtown Toronto. Differences in the employment profiles of business parks relative to those of most study areas reflect an absence or limited presence of public-sector employment, which explains low proportions of occupations related to Type E occupations (social sciences, education, government, and religion). Moreover, their facilities and locations do not seem to appeal to people engaged in arts, culture, recreation, and sport occupations. On the other hand, the occupation profile of the business parks reflects the presence of some manufacturing establishments taking advantage of their plentiful space. Downtown Toronto, the nodes, and the smaller downtowns are distinguished from the business parks by a wider range of office-related employment, because of the presence of private- and public-sector workplaces. The office orientation of many of the study areas also differentiates the employment profiles of their workplaces from those of the GTA as a whole. Retailing Trends There are similarities between the impacts of office and retail development trends on study areas. In both cases, present location preferences and configurations are unfavourable to study areas. The Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity has documented the rapid spread since the early 199s of the big-box store format, often aggregated within power centres (CSCA, 1996, 78-91; Hernandez, Erguden and Bermingham, 26; Jones and Doucet, 1999). Not surprisingly, the proliferation of big-box stores has coincided with a marked deceleration of shopping mall development and rising vacancies along main streets. The big-box format represents a major potential source of competition for downtown and node retail establishments. Preferring low-cost locations with excellent automobile accessibility (such as industrial lands), big-box stores do not generally opt for the types of intensified environments investigated in this report, and their presence in other locations lures shoppers away from the retailing found in downtowns and nodes (Jones and Doucet, 1999). In reality, however, study areas

67 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 59 have attracted some of the minority of big-box stores that locate in shopping malls and on traditional shopping streets. Moreover, by virtue of their presence at the summit of the retail hierarchy, the three regional malls in our study areas (downtown Toronto s Eaton Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Square One in the Mississauga City Centre) have withstood big-box competition better than most. In fact, two of these have undergone recent expansion: Scarborough Town Centre in 1998 and Square One in 25. North York Centre has also experienced growth in its retail space. A new mall, part of a condominium complex, was added in 1997 and expanded in 2. Likewise, the two small downtowns were untouched by big-box stores. The focus on niche markets and hospitality of downtown Oakville shelters it from the competition of these stores, and given the advanced depletion of the downtown Kitchener retail scene, there is little supplementary damage to be inflicted by big-box stores. It is the nodes that are planned for the future that will be most affected by the predominance of the big-box store. While two of the existing nodes developed around existing malls (as we will see, not without some adverse consequences on pedestrian movement and synergy), future nodes will be denied this possibility. The scattering of big-box stores will make it difficult for them to attract mass retailing and thus achieve a high degree of multi-functionality. Furthermore, the weak presence of retailing in emerging nodes may impede their capacity to draw other land use, notably, office employment and high-density housing. Not only do big-box stores imperil the launching of new nodes, but they are also at the antipodes of the planning objectives pursued by the Places to Grow Urban Growth Centre strategy. Either as stand-alone structures or when agglomerated into power centres, big-box stores operate in a mono-functional environment that is fully adapted to the automobile and that generates high volumes of car journeys, especially since these generally have a single destination, in contrast with the multi-purpose trips to shopping malls. Density Comparing overall densities As Table 13 shows, the highest densities tend to be in the most central locations within the metropolitan region. Downtown Toronto is unchallenged in this regard, with a joint residential-employment density more than 55 per cent higher than that of the Yonge-Eglinton node, which comes second among the study areas. Not surprisingly, given the important concentration of jobs in the Central Business District, employment is by far the main contributor to the high downtown joint density. More so than in downtown Toronto, residential density contributes to the high Yonge-Eglinton population-plus-jobs density. It is remarkable that residential density within this node surpasses that of downtown Toronto. In North York Centre, which comes third in terms of joint density, the contributions of employment and resident population are about equal. Finally, the Yonge Street Corridor

68 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 6 Table 13: Population, dwellings, and employment density, study areas and two suburban business parks Population per km 2 Dwellings per km 2 Jobs per km 2 Population plus jobs per km 2 Downtown Toronto 7,95 4,5 39,45 47,4 Yonge-Eglinton 12,95 8,4 17,6 3,55 North York Centre 11,25 5,2 12,5 23,75 Yonge Street Corridor 7,85 4,1 5,1 12,85 Downtown Oakville 3,65 2, 6,7 1,35 Downtown Kitchener 3,45 1,8 5,8 9,25 Scarborough Town Centre 2, ,35 8,6 Mississauga City Centre 3,8 1,65 4,3 8,1 Mississauga East Corridor 4,9 1,7 9 5,8 Highway 44, North East Steeles Business Park ,35 3,5 Highway 41, Airport Corporate Centre ,3 3,3 Centres are ranked in order of combined (population plus jobs) density. Source: Statistics Canada, 21 Census, special tabulation owes its density primarily to its residential function, while downtown Oakville has an employment density considerably higher than its residential density. All the other study areas have joint densities below 1, per km 2. Downtown Kitchener, the highest scoring among these lower-density areas, owes its density primarily to employment, as does Scarborough Town Centre, the next study area in terms of joint density. In Mississauga City Centre, in contrast, there is less difference in the respective roles of residential and employment density, similar to the North York Centre situation. The Mississauga East Corridor owes its density nearly exclusively to its residential population. The general drop in density as we move from downtown Toronto to inner-city Toronto, and then to suburban study areas, corresponds with the familiar metropolitan-wide density slope from the core to the periphery (see the classical models of Alonso, 196; Clark, 1951; Wingo, 1961; see also Chen, 1997). 12 Downtowns, nodes, and corridors present a higher-density version of their urban and suburban surroundings. As we shall see, the mode of transportation that dominates within each urban zone clearly influences the density of the study areas. Density reflects a 12 Unlike most other variables studied here, density scores of study areas are not compared with those of their respective urban zone or municipality. The difficulty in measuring density at a zonal or municipal scale that would be consistent with those of selected downtowns, nodes, and corridors prevents such comparisons. Downtowns and nodes, and to a somewhat lesser extent, density corridors, were defined to include mostly land uses that are compatible with their status as highdensity concentrations of activities. The calculation of the density of zones and municipalities, by contrast, would take in all kinds of land uses, including large swaths of land occupied neither by housing nor employment. The presence of these large surfaces would depress the overall density of zones and municipalities, and reduce the usefulness of the results for a comparison with the study areas. Still, to provide a benchmark mirroring common suburban employment location patterns, the density of the study areas is compared to that of two large automobile-dependent business parks.

69 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 61 mutual adjustment between travel patterns within these areas and their land use. Transit use and walking require far higher densities and mixtures of uses than automobile-oriented environments (see, for example, Anderson, Kanaroglou and Miller, 1996; Badoe and Miller, 2; Cervero, 22; Dittmar and Ohland, 24; Pushkarev and Zupan, 1977). A comparison of the study areas to two large, fully developed automobile-oriented business parks, one at the northeast corner of Highway 44 and Steeles Avenue and the other along Highway 41 south of the airport (the Airport Corporate Centre), shows that study areas all achieve joint densities that far exceed those of the two business parks. Such business parks are the usual location of office and manufacturing employment in the suburbs (Cervero, 1989; Hughes, Miller and Lang, 1992; Lang, 23). At first glance, the low density of the business parks could be blamed on a near-absence of housing within their areas. But even in terms of employment alone, the density of all selected downtowns, nodes, and corridors, with the exception of the Mississauga East corridor, which is predominantly residential, exceeds that of the two business parks. Yet in most cases, study areas remain well below the Places to Grow density thresholds set for 231. Of all the study areas, only downtown Toronto meets these density objectives 474 people and jobs per hectare, versus a goal of 4 for City of Toronto Urban Growth Centres. 13 The population and employment densities of other nodes in the City of Toronto are below this threshold: 35 for Yonge-Eglinton, 237 for North York Centre, and 86 for Scarborough Town Centre. Likewise, the density of other study areas is considerably less than the objective of 2 people and jobs per hectare by 231 for UGCs in the Greater Toronto Area (outside the City of Toronto) and Kitchener-Waterloo: 81 for Mississauga City Centre, 13 for downtown Oakville, and 92 for downtown Kitchener. Even nodal developments that have achieved a high level of development (which is the case of nodes under study in the report) will need considerable intensification to meet these objectives. The gap between present and projected density levels in investigated nodes casts doubt on the ability of present configurations to reach these density objectives. Population and dwelling density The relationship between population and dwelling density indicates that, because of smaller household size (1.7 persons per household on average), it takes more dwellings in downtown Toronto and the Yonge-Eglinton node to accommodate a given population than it does in Mississauga City Centre (2.9 persons per household), Scarborough Town Centre (2.9), or the Mississauga East corridor (3.), where household sizes are much larger. 14 The Yonge Street corridor (2.), North York Centre (2.4), and downtown Oakville (1.9) occupy a median position. 13 The density figures presented here differ from those in Places to Grow documents describing the present state of UGCs because downtown and nodal spatial definitions adopted in this report do not correspond to the larger UGC territories used in Places to Grow (Ontario, 25c). 14 See Table 9 for household size data.

70 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 62 Here again, the study areas reflect a metropolitan-wide trend: increasing household size as we move from the core of the region to its periphery (Davies and Murdie, 1994; Murdie, 1969). Downtown Oakville is an exception, which will be investigated later. Factors accounting for this situation include the predilection of single-person or childless households for downtown and transit-oriented lifestyles, along with the higher prices and smaller sizes of housing units in Toronto s central areas. Table 14 presents the percentage of study area units belonging to different housing types. One cannot make a simple connection between household size and housing type distributions. In all the nodes, units in buildings with five or more storeys represent the vast majority of units. The housing profile of downtown Toronto is comparable to that of the nodes, despite important variations in household size. On the other hand, the two corridors and downtown Oakville have a more even distribution of housing types, with units in buildings with five or more storeys either at or below 5 per cent. Finally, in downtown Kitchener, the percentage of units in buildings with five or more storeys is considerably lower than in any other study area. Table 14 further indicates that in all cases, including downtown Kitchener, the proportion of units in buildings with five or more storeys is much higher in the study areas than in their respective urban zone or municipality. Even in downtown Oakville and downtown Kitchener, where the over-representation of such units is less pronounced, all types of multiples together far surpass proportions registered in their respective municipalities. Built environment Land use patterns are a major source of differences among the study areas and contribute to the varying densities of these areas, the travel mode shares of those who live or work in the areas, as well as interrelations among their functions. This analysis focuses largely on the spatial interconnectivity of their functions and the quality of their urban environment from the perspective of pedestrians. Mapping of the built environment for each site under investigation is contained in Appendix C. In accord with planning thinking since the publication of Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the analysis assumes that pedestrians are particularly attracted to areas with continuous street-facing façades, small blocks, and a stimulating street-level environment. Such an environment typically features attractive store windows, sidewalk cafés, a scale of activities that is consistent with walking speed, and the presence of large numbers of people on sidewalks (Handy, Paterson and Butler, 23). Jacobs perspective on walkable environments was based on direct observation of a particular neighbourhood. Over the past few decades, however, the impact of land use and the built environment on walking has been the object of more

71 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 63 Table 14: Per cent dwelling types in study areas and their respective urban zone or municipality, and ratios of study area proportions relative to those of their urban zone or municipality Single-detached House Semi-detached House Row House Apartment, Detached Duplex Apartment, Building with Five or More Storeys Apartment, Building with Less than Five Storeys Other Single-detached Movable Downtown Toronto 1.5% 3.% 3.3%.5% 8.4% 1.8%.6%.% Inner City 19.9% 14.4% 4.7% 3.2% 38.8% 18.5%.7%.% Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Yonge-Eglinton 5.7% 2.9% 2.6% 1.% 7.9% 16.5%.7%.% Inner City 19.9% 14.4% 4.7% 3.2% 38.8% 18.5%.7%.% Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre 8.8%.5% 5.%.1% 83.6% 2.2%.%.% City of North York 31.3% 9.8% 6.2% 1.1% 41.5% 1.1%.1%.% Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre 5.8%.% 2.1%.% 92.1%.%.%.% City of Scarborough 44.2% 5.6% 8.% 3.1% 34.8% 4.3%.1%.% Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre 2.7% 2.9% 3.8%.2% 9.2%.%.%.% City of Mississauga 44.5% 12.5% 13%.8% 24.7% 4.2%.1%.2% Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville 14.2% 2.1% 8.9%.5% 45.8% 27.4%.%.% Town of Oakville 66.% 4.2% 12%.5% 13.2% 4.%.1%.% Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville Downtown Kitchener 3.5% 2.5%.4% 8.9% 32.7% 23.6% 1.5%.% Kitchener CMA 55.5% 6.9% 9.9% 1.8% 1.8% 14.6%.3%.2% Ratio: Downtown Kitchener / Kitchener CMA Yonge Street Corridor 22.7% 6.% 1.9% 2.8% 5.5% 16.%.3%.% Inner City 19.9% 14.4% 4.7% 3.2% 38.8% 18.5%.7%.% Ratio: Yonge Street Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 27.5% 1.6% 14.6%.1% 43.% 3.6%.%.65 City of Mississauga 44.5% 12.5% 13%.8% 24.7% 4.2%.1%.25 Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / Mississauga Source: Statistics Canada, 21 Census.

72 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 64 systematic investigation in a variety of locations. Researchers have concentrated on specific aspects of the physical environment that influence walking and used statistical analysis to measure these relationships (Handy, 25). Residential and employment density (Frank and Pivo, 1995; Greenwalt and Boarnet, 21; Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade, and Douglas, 1993) and a mixture of land uses (Kitamura, Mokhtarian, and Daidet, 1997; Kockelman, 1997) are commonly highlighted in studies. Other factors identified as favourable to walking include continuity of the built environment (Appleyard, 1981; Gehl, 1986) and an environment that is sufficiently complex and fine-grained to sustain the interest of pedestrians (Rappaport, 1987). Attention has also been given to human scale and a sense of enclosure (Handy, Paterson, and Butter, 23). Finally, the presence of activities accessible on foot plays a major role in the walkability of a given area (Cervero, 1996; Cervero and Duncan, 23; Hanson and Schwab, 1987). This report takes the view that not only can nodes, downtowns, and corridors help reduce dependence on the car by offering an environment that is hospitable to pedestrians and inter-connects different functions, but that such an environment can promote the success of these areas. Indeed, the possibility of walking to a wide range of activities can distinguish nodes, downtowns, and corridors from other urban settings and thus represents a major comparative advantage for these areas over automobile-oriented suburban sites. Such an advantage can be an important factor in the ongoing development of nodes, downtowns and corridors. Downtown Toronto Downtown Toronto represents the most diversified environment among the study areas. It includes the financial district, highly differentiated retail areas (Yonge Street, Bloor Street, Yorkville, Queen West) and major public spaces and institutions (Nathan Phillips Square, Queen s Park, the University Avenue hospitals, the University of Toronto). The downtown also contains Chinatown, remnants of old residential areas (now generally gentrified), industrial districts (often transformed into offices or lofts), and high-density residential developments. TORONTO DOWNTOWN > Yonge and Dundas, looking south: On the east side (left), traditional store façades and of the west side (right), the Eaton Centre also presents store windows. TORONTO DOWNTOWN > Redevelopment in the Bloor-Yorkville district adopts a high-rise configuration with stores at the street level. TORONTO DOWNTOWN > Chinatown: Narrow façades and diversity, stimulation and entertainment for the pedestrian.

73 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 65 From an urban form perspective, most of the downtown is covered with buildings. The space devoted to the automobile roads and surface parking lots is relatively limited. In consequence, the environment is generally friendly to pedestrians, offering continuous façades, rarely interrupted by surface parking. However, streets with stores offer a more stimulating environment to pedestrians than the windswept plazas of the financial district and the blind walls of large buildings from the modernist era. Overall, the downtown area provides excellent conditions for walking among its different functions, either through the street network or the underground PATH pedestrian walkway system, with its store-lined corridors. In its multi-functionality and synergy, downtown Toronto represents a model to be replicated at a reduced scale by other GGH downtowns and nodes. Yonge-Eglinton node The Yonge-Eglinton node replaced, from the late 195s onwards, much of the mature inner-city texture that predated it. It includes office space, a retail mall that is part of an office complex, two traditional commercial streets, and numerous high-rise apartment buildings interspersed with single-family homes and low-rise apartments on residential streets. High-rise residential buildings are generally set back behind a landscaped front yard, a legacy of the architectural models prevailing during the 195s and 196s. Nevertheless, thanks to a layout that is mostly street-oriented, the absence of large surface parking lots, and its small size, the Yonge-Eglinton node provides excellent pedestrian connectivity among its different functions. TORONTO DOWNTOWN > Queen Street West: A traditional retail area increasingly occupied by trendy and tourist-oriented stores. Note the wide sidewalk. YONGE-EGLINTON NODE > Retail façades on Yonge Street with redevelopment behind. North York Centre North York Centre stretches along Yonge Street over more than 2.5 kilometres. It has largely replaced a typical 195s commercial strip, stretches of which still stand. Redevelopment has not been uniform along this portion of Yonge Street, but has been concentrated around three poles that coincide with three subway stations. The largest cluster of redevelopment runs from Sheppard Avenue to Park Home and Empress Avenue and occupies the middle part of North York Centre. It consists of a high-density mixture of offices, indoor retail malls, a civic centre (with municipal offices, library, and theatre), street retail, a hotel, and NORTH YORK CENTRE > The width of Yonge Street and high traffic levels are detrimental to the pedestrian environment of North York Centre.

74 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 66 housing. The second cluster, which surrounds the Finch Avenue Yonge Street intersection, shares some of the functional diversity of the first pole, but is not as developed. The third, located immediately north of Highway 41, is essentially residential. All three have recently experienced extensive high-rise residential condominium growth. The linearity of North York Centre is a function of zoning regulations adopted to protect surrounding single-family-home neighbourhoods. The effect of the regulations is to cause an abrupt fall in density one or two blocks away from Yonge Street. NORTH YORK CENTRE > Mel Lastman Square is a well-designed public space in North York Centre. The attraction of North York Centre for pedestrians is uneven. Yonge Street s sidewalks connect all components of the centre and some remnants of the original retail strip provide continuous store façades, as do many of the newer developments. However, the six lanes of Yonge Street and its heavy volumes of traffic do not make for a pleasant pedestrian environment. The length of North York Centre represents a further obstacle to pedestrian movement through the area as a whole, and much of the interaction between activities probably takes place within the three clusters. Sidewalk-facing parking lots and automobile-oriented retailing make the areas between the clusters unattractive to pedestrians. We can anticipate that, over time, the replacement of these types of development will make North York Centre more appealing to pedestrians. Scarborough Town Centre The difficulties confronting pedestrians in North York Centre pale by comparison to those experienced in Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre. The two have much in common, since both nodes centre on a large indoor mall, surrounded by extensive parking. Parts of Scarborough Town Centre feel like a campus, with curvilinear streets, footpaths, green space, buildings placed at a distance from each other, and heavily treed buffers separating multi-functional areas from nearby single-family residential districts. The campus ambience is, however, compromised by abundant parking. The different functions found in Scarborough Town Centre are often spatially disconnected. To reach the shopping mall from the main office concentration, one has to cross a major arterial road and a sizable parking lot. The link from the mall to the larg- SCARBOROUGH TOWN CENTRE > Parts of Scarborough Town Centre adopt a campus-like layout. SCARBOROUGH TOWN CENTRE > Much of the space in Scarborough Town Centre is taken by the regional mall and its parking lot.

75 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 67 est residential cluster involves a one-kilometre walk on wide streets surrounded by open land and surface parking lots. Mississauga City Centre Mississauga City Centre does not have Scarborough Town Centre s campus-like layout. It too is composed of specialized districts, but they tend to be different and larger. The shopping mall is the second largest in the Toronto metropolitan region, and is adjacent to an extensive and architecturally distinctive civic centre, two groups of private office buildings, and high-rise residential development (Jones and Hernandez, 26: Table 6.2). Although much of the surface of the central, commercial part of the node and of some of the office districts is taken by parking (at ground level or decked), the remainder of the node devotes far less space to parking, thanks to the presence of underground parking in the civic centre as well as in some office and residential buildings. The newer buildings relate much better to the street than previous structures did. Nevertheless, it is proving difficult to find activities to animate the sidewalk-facing façades of these recent buildings. Shops and restaurants to the north of the mall have made efforts to create a street-oriented environment, and the expansion of the shopping mall towards the civic centre has removed the obstacle to pedestrian movement that the parking lot represented. Mississauga City Centre > Mississauga City Centre, like the other nodes under study, is the site of a considerable condominium construction boom. Mississauga City Centre > As in Scarborough Town Centre, a high proportion of the space in Mississauga City Centre is given to parking with deleterious effects on pedestrian movements. However, these initiatives have so far failed to provide the kind of pedestrianhospitable environment that would promote the integration of Mississauga City Centre s different activities. One problem is its size (1.5 by 1.5 km), which discourages walking from an activity at one end of the node to another at the other end. This problem is compounded by the wide arterials and abundant surface parking in its core. Finally, the large scale of the development is ill-adapted to people moving at walking speed. Downtown Oakville Downtown Oakville is a traditional main street lined with boutiques, restaurants, and cafés. The downtown covers 12 blocks and presents continuous façades along the main street. Parking is at the back of the stores, in lots that are small enough not to break pedestrian con- DOWNTOWN OAKVILLE > Downtown Oakville is one of the few outdoor pedestrian-oriented environments in suburban Toronto.

76 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 68 nectivity with neighbourhoods surrounding the downtown. The downtown and these neighbourhoods are well linked by the street grid covering old Oakville. With the exception of concentrations of high-density housing at each end of the main street, nearby neighbourhoods are mostly composed of single-family homes. Its small size, layout, and external links make Oakville s downtown highly conducive to walking. Because the shops do not cater to the needs of nearby residents (for example, there is no supermarket), the downtown is primarily oriented towards visitors, to whom it owes its success. So although pedestrians can easily walk in from the abutting neighbourhoods, the scarcity of downtown activities adapted to residents needs discourages such trips. Downtown Kitchener Like downtown Oakville, downtown Kitchener is a traditional downtown. In the early 196s, it was the region s premier retail centre. But over the decades, the area lost employment and retailers, and the landscape bears the scars of its lacklustre economic performance. Main-street façades that used to be uninterrupted are now broken as a result of fires and demolitions, which have allowed the infiltration of surface parking lots. Remaining façades tend to be either vacant or occupied by low-order retailing. Two downtown retail malls were built in the 197s and the early 198s to help downtown Kitchener compete with the suburbs, but both have since lost their mainstream stores and faltered. One is now entirely occupied by offices and the other contains a fitness centre, some stores, and offices. Functions are mixed on the main street, with stores and office buildings (although most large office structures are on surrounding streets). The main street is, however, increasingly becoming the site of civic and subsidized cultural activities: it is already home to city hall, a theatre, and a children s museum. A new library is being considered. Despite the industrial sites (both active and abandoned) at one end of the downtown area, connectivity with surrounding neighbourhoods is high, since all these districts share the same grid pattern. Housing types vary within the abutting neighbourhoods: single-family homes, duplexes, and low-rise and high-rise apartment buildings. There are also profound differences in the socioeconomic status of residents in different neighbourhoods. DOWNTOWN KITCHENER > Fires and demolitions have created gaps in the façades along downtown Kitchener s King Street. DOWNTOWN KITCHENER > The main street in downtown Kitchener has become the site of public sector and cultural activities: We see here the theatre and the children s museum.

77 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 69 Pedestrian movement is promoted by the connectivity provided by the street grid, as well as by the remaining street-aligned façades, but hindered by breaks in the main street s frontages, the unattractiveness of existing façades and store windows, and the vacant land left by de-industrialization. Distance is also a problem: the commercial part of the downtown covers 2 blocks and the main street stretches over 1.3 km. To make matters worse, in response to concerns in the 196s that a revitalized downtown would become too congested, the concert hall was located more than 5 metres from the main street. One challenge confronting downtown Kitchener is the design of new buildings that are attractive to pedestrians. But the biggest struggle is how to launch a cycle of growth by creating positive synergistic effects between, on the one hand, retailing and hospitality services, and on the other, employment and housing. Yonge Street corridor The buildings lining Yonge Street, the spine of the Yonge Street corridor, are mostly continuous store façades surmounted by one or two additional storeys. These structures are interspersed with mid-rise and high-rise buildings. The street orientation of the more recent buildings presumably reflects a wish on the part of their developers to profit from the commercial character of the street by having stores on the ground floor, which coincides with planning requirements for street-related retail. High-rise buildings are mostly found close to the four main intersections of the corridor (and the sites of subway stations): Yonge/St. Clair, Yonge/Davisville, Yonge/Eglinton, and Yonge/Lawrence. Just to the east and west of Yonge Street are residential neighbourhoods containing single-family homes, mostly on narrow lots, as well as some townhouses and low-rise apartment buildings. Yonge Street provides a stimulating pedestrian environment and links with surrounding neighbourhoods are secured by a tight street grid. Retailing on Yonge Street is targeted at different markets. For most nearby residents, the portion of Yonge Street close to their home plays the role of a neighbourhood main street. Office building clusters at Yonge and St. Clair and in the Yonge-Eglinton node also support retail activity. Another market consists of people driving along the corridor or using its subway stations. Finally, restaurants and other activities with a relatively large trade area have adopted a Yonge Street location because of its street life, the trendy character of some areas, and its accessibility by car and public transit. Mississauga East corridor If Yonge Street displays the features of an inner-city environment, the Mississauga East corridor is clearly suburban. It is defined as a succession of census tracts with densities that well exceed the suburban norm. In fact, this corridor represents the largest outer-suburban concentration of such census tracts, despite sharp variations in density levels, the outcome of clear demarcations between residential districts, each of which features a single type of housing.

78 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 7 Most of the corridor consists of single-family home subdivisions, with pockets of townhouse developments and high-rise apartment buildings. Retailing is in the form of one indoor mall (Square One, just north of the boundary of the corridor) and strip malls of different dimensions, all with abundant parking space. The corridor itself may be underprovided with retailing because of its proximity to the mammoth Square One mall. The street pattern of the corridor follows the superblock principle, with arterials at approximately one-kilometre intervals. Retailing is found on the arterials. If the inner portions of the superblocks offer a peaceful, albeit unstimulating, walking environment, the arterials are clearly dominated by the automobile. Since building façades are not built out to the sidewalk, the Mississauga corridor lacks pedestrian connectivity. Still, efforts have been made to connect high-density residential and shopping areas. Residential and employment densities are highest along the portion of the corridor that is closest to, and overlaps with, the Mississauga City Centre. Elsewhere in this predominantly residential corridor, employment is minimal. Morphology, suitability for pedestrians, and connectivity A systematic measurement of the different land uses present in the downtowns and nodes under investigation allows for a deeper examination of the morphology of these study areas and, indirectly, of their suitability for pedestrians and interfunctional connectivity. There is some variation between the boundaries of the places that are the object of land use measurements and those used elsewhere in the report to define study areas. For a delineation of these variations, see the note at the end of Table 15 (page 74). Research on environments that are favourable to walking and strong connections among different functions shows that such places usually have a large proportion of their land covered by buildings. Such a layout can support a concentration of activities within a limited area and may ideally take the form of continuous façades built out to the sidewalks. Campus-like configurations that segregate pedestrians and cars ostensibly provide a setting that supports walking, but people in such environments are surrounded largely by green space and may miss the stimulation found on lively commercial streets. These configurations also lack the sense of containment provided by unbroken façades. Empty spaces, roads, and surface and decked parking impede walking and connectivity. Generally, the more space that is devoted to the automobile, the poorer the pedestrian environment, given the monotony of automobile space for people who walk and, more generally, the unsuitability for walkers of environments built with the car in mind. Land use measurements drawn from aerial photographs do not allow a review of all factors of walkability discussed in the literature. They do, however, yield statistics on a number of features with known effects on walking, such as the balance between land uses that accommodate the automobile (roads and parking) and those that cater to pedestrians (sidewalks, pathways and plazas). Land use data also indicate the proportion of study areas occupied by buildings, and thus

79 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 71 the capacity of these areas to bring activities within walking reach and provide both connectivity and a sense of enclosure. Measurements of the proportion of street frontages occupied by façades made it possible to further gauge connectivity and enclosure. Table 15 contrasts two types of environments: four downtown Toronto districts known for their high pedestrian circulation vs. Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre, two suburban nodes developed on greenfield sites around a pre-existing regional mall. These two categories are distinguished by the portion of their surface that is covered by buildings. The footprint of buildings accounts for between 5.9 and 58.2 per cent of the land of downtown Toronto districts, while equivalent values for Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre are respectively 13.7 and 19.1 per cent. The different morphology of the two types of study areas and of the likely impact on their inner dynamics is even more apparent in the dramatic variation in the street frontage that is occupied by façades built out to the sidewalk. For the four downtown Toronto districts, such façades represent 77.1 per cent of street frontage, with values ranging from 79.6 to 1 per cent for their main commercial streets. In contrast, only 5.6 and 6.8 per cent of the street frontage is occupied by façades in Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre. The proportion of space taken by roads is higher in the downtown Toronto districts than it is in the two suburban nodes. Such a paradoxical finding is a consequence of the higher space consumption of roads in a tight grid pattern than in the suburban super-block configuration, where roads are wider, but less numerous. Sidewalks also distinguish the two types of districts. Sidewalks are invariably present on both sides of the streets of the downtown districts and are wide on the main commercial streets. They occupy 7.5 per cent of the surface of these areas. In the Bloor-Yorkville and Queen Street West districts, this percentage reaches 8.5 per cent. In Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre, sidewalks occupy only 2.2 and 3.6 per cent of the space, respectively. This includes pathways, which are common in the Scarborough Town Centre. The limited space is given to sidewalks in the two suburban nodes because there are fewer roads than in central districts, many roads have sidewalks only on one side, and suburban sidewalks tend to be narrow. Parking and green space also distinguish the downtown Toronto districts from the suburban nodes. Surface and decked parking represents only 1.6 per cent of the total area of the selected downtown Toronto districts. In Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre, surface and decked parking accounts for 34.4 and 39.9 per cent of the surface, respectively. In both these cases, the retail centres, mainly the regional malls, register the highest proportion of space devoted to parking. The residential sector of Scarborough Town Centre and some of the

80 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 72 Table 15: Measurements of the built environment in investigated downtowns and nodes Sector of Study Area Building Coverage, m 2 Road Space, m 2 Surface Parking, m 2 Decked Parking, m 2 Green Space, m 2 Sidewalks, m 2 Plazas, m 2 Construction, m 2 Empty Space, m 2 Rail Transit, m 2 Total Area, m 2 Yonge- Eglinton Node 21, % 71, % 144, % 16,16 2.8% 84, % 34,88 6.% 13,65 2.4%.%.% 9,62 1.7% 576,73 1% North York Centre 27, % 172, % 254, % 2,23.2% 159, % 52,41 4.9% 61,53 5.7% 84,85 7.9%.% 14,75 1.4% 1,72,87 1% Scarborough Town Centre Retail Centre 75,39 2.2% 32,42 8.7% 144, % 38,9 1.4% 74, % 2,38.6%.%.%.% 5, % 372,95 1% Campus 27, 9.3% 39, % 57, % 5,76 2.% 123, % 9,59 3.3% 14,23 4.9% 6,86 2.4%.% 7,39 2.5% 291,59 1% Office Cluster 15,28 1.% 35, % 35, %.% 56,5 36.8% 4,75 3.1% 2,59 1.7%.%.% 2,16 1.4% 152,26 1% Residential Cluster 18,5 1.7% 2, % 57, %.% 4, % 4,62 2.7% 11,39 6.6% 2,88 12.%.%.% 173,58 1% Total 136, % 127, % 295, % 44,66 4.5% 294, % 21,33 2.2% 28,21 2.8% 27,75 2.8%.% 14,72 1.5% 99,38 1% Mississauga City Centre Retail Centre 177, % 65,69 1.6% 28, % 26,35 4.3% 52,3 8.5% 8,22 1.3% 8,8 1.3%.%.%.% 618,83 1% Civic Centre 29,7 24.9% 27, % 7,95 6.8%.% 22,12 19.% 1,13 8.7% 2,6 17.2%.%.%.% 116,67 1% Office Cluster 43,46 1.8% 76, % 159, % 9,55 2.4% 84,52 21.% 2,45 5.1% 7,79 1.9%.%.%.% 41,97 1% Residential Cluster 36,13 9.9% 49, % 114, %.% 14, % 14,91 4.1% 2,2.6% 5,37 1.5%.%.% 363,6 1% Total 286, % 219,3 14.6% 563, % 35,89 2.4% 299,63 2.% 53,71 3.6% 38,13 2.5% 5,37.4%.%.% 1,51,7 1% Downtown Oakville 8, % 48, % 4,4 19.6%.% 13,23 6.4% 18,65 9.% 6,7 2.9%.%.%.% 26,63 1% Downtown Kitchener 153, % 76, % 118, % 14, 3.1% 38,59 8.5% 35,4 7.8% 8,79 1.9% 74.2%.% 7,52 1.7% 452,73 1% Downtown Toronto Bloor- Yorkville 124, % 41, % 13,55 5.9% 6,83 3.% 18,25 7.9% 19,46 8.5% 4,63 2.% 1,55.7%.%.% 23,21 1% Yonge- Dundas- Queen 166, % 43, % 17,19 5.9% 12,78 4.4% 6,71 2.3% 18,83 6.5% 17,11 5.9% 8,19 2.8%.%.% 29,77 1% Chinatown 15, % 29, % 21, %.% 6,7 3.4% 12,98 7.2% 1,3.6%.%.% 4,8 2.7% 181,11 1% Queen St West 62,15 5.9% 24,4 19.7% 15, %.% 94.8% 1,33 8.5% 1,21 1.% 8, 6.6%.%.% 122,5 1% Total of Downtown Toronto selected areas 457, % 138, % 67,71 8.2% 19,6 2.4% 31,96 3.9% 61,61 7.5% 23,98 2.9% 17,74 2.2%.% 4,8.6% 824,14 1%

81 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 73 Table 15: Measurements of the built environment in investigated downtowns and nodes (continued) Sector of Study Area Streets Street Frontage, m Yonge-Eglinton Node North York Centre Scarborough Town Centre Yonge Eglinton Others All streets Yonge Others All streets 1,52 1,68 7,47 1,66 4,38 13,76 18,14 Street-facing Façades, m 1,17 1,23 1,65 4,5 2,47 3,74 6,21 Façades as Per Cent of Frontage Retail Centre 2,23 Campus 2, Office Cluster 1, Residential Cluster 2, Mississauga City Centre Total 8, Retail Centre 4, Civic Centre 2, Office Cluster 5, Residential Cluster 5, Downtown Oakville Downtown Kitchener Downtown Toronto Bloor-Yorkville Yonge-Dundas-Queen Chinatown Queen St West Total of Downtown Toronto selected areas Total 17,21 1, Lakeshore Others All streets King Street Others All Streets Bloor Yonge Cumberland Others All streets Yonge Others All streets Spadina Dundas Others All streets Queen Spadina Others All streets 1,17 5,18 6,34 1,97 7,99 9,95 1, ,9 2,87 5,38 1,53 3,47 5, ,35 4,5 1, 14 2,52 3,66 1,7 2,36 3,43 1,63 3,37 5, , 4,9 1,37 2,3 3, ,57 3, ,99 3, All streets 18,8 13,

82 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 74 Table 15: Measurements of the built environment in investigated downtowns and nodes (continued) Delineation of the study areas for the purpose of land use measurements: The formula used for these measurements included commercial and public buildings as well as high-density housing. Parking, landscaping, and access roads to these buildings were also measured, as were parks and plazas. Other uses surrounded by nodal or downtown functions were measured, such as empty lots. The limits of the sectors measured here coincided with the transition from commercial and high-density uses to low-density residential and workplaces as well as open land. But parking lots at the edge of these sectors were included, because it was assumed that they served the nodal and downtown functions. Boundaries of the different measured areas: Yonge-Eglinton node: commercial and high-density properties on the west side of Yonge St from Roselawn Ave to Orchard View Blvd; Orchard View Blvd to Duplex Ave, and commercial properties facing the north side of Eglinton Ave to Henning Ave; commercial properties facing the south side of Eglinton Ave from Maxwell Ave to Duplex Ave; Duplex Ave to Hillgate Ave (excluding low-density properties); commercial properties facing Yonge St between Soudan Ave and Hillsdale Ave; Erskine Ave to Redpath Ave; Redpath Ave to Roehampton Ave including high-density housing to the east of Redpath Ave; Roehampton Ave to Mount Pleasant Rd and Soudan Ave to Yonge St (excluding low-density properties facing Soudan Ave). North York Centre: Area bordered by Hendon Ave, Duplex Ave, Lorraine Dr, the property line of high-density office and residential buildings, Canterbury Pl, Beecroft Rd, Poyntz Ave, Glendora Ave, Tradewind Ave, Bonnington Pl, Sheppard Ave, Kenneth Ave, Spring Garden Ave, Doris Ave, back of high-density and commercial properties facing Yonge St, Olive Ave, Dudley Ave, Finch Ave, Kenneth Ave, Bishop Ave. Scarborough Town Centre: Progress Ave (including properties to the north of the avenue that are developed or under development), Highway 41, Toyota Pl, Bellamy Rd, Progress Ave (excluding industrial properties to the north of Progress Ave), Consilium Pl, Grangeway Ave, Bushby Dr (including developments and parking to the east and south of Grangeway Ave and Bushby Dr), McCowan Rd, Ellesmere Rd, Brimley Rd, Omni Dr, Borough Dr. Mississauga City Centre: Developments facing the north side of Burnhamthorpe Rd between Confederation Pkwy and Living Arts Dr; Living Arts Dr, Prince of Wales Dr, Duke of York Blvd, Rathburn Rd to 5m west of Living Arts Dr, Centre View Dr, City Centre Dr, access ramp to Hurontario St, Hurontario St; office developments east of Hurontario St, north and south of Robert Speck Pkwy; highdensity residential development east of Hurontario between Burnhamthorpe Rd and Central Parkway East; high-density office, hotel and residential development west of Hurontario St between Kariya Dr and Elm Dr. Burnhamthorpe Rd represents the southern limit for the remainder of the Mississauga City Centre. Downtown Oakville: Area within Water St, Randall St, Allan St and Robinson St. Downtown Kitchener: Area within Francis St, Joseph St, Queen St, Church St, Charles St, Eby St, Market Lane, Scott St, Spetz St, Frederick St, Otto St, Queen St, Weber St, Ontario St, Duke St. Downtown Toronto, Bloor-Yorkville: Area within Queen s Park Ave, Yorkville Ave, Yonge St, Charles Street. Downtown Toronto, Yonge-Dundas-Queen: Area within Bay St, Gerrard St, Victoria St, Queen St. Downtown Toronto, Chinatown: Area within Cameron St, the back property line of commercial buildings facing Spadina Ave, Dundas St, Kensington Ave, Baldwin St, Spadina Ave, D Arcy St, Beverley St, Grange Ave, Huron St, Phoebe St, Spadina Ave to the back of properties facing Queen St. Downtown Toronto, Queen St West: Area within Spadina Ave, Bulwer St, Soho St, Phoebe St, Stephanie St, McCaul St, Duncan St, Richmond St.

83 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 75 office areas of Mississauga City Centre also contain large amounts of parking space. While nearly absent from the downtown districts (covering only 3.9 per cent of their area), green space occupies a substantial proportion of the surface of Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre (29.7 and 2 per cent, respectively). Nodes make liberal use of green space for buffering, a technique commonly used to separate suburban land uses. In downtown Toronto, where space is at a premium, land uses co-exist side by side. Like suburbs in general, suburban nodes are composed of specialized districts associated with specific functions and presenting distinctive layouts. 15 An abundance of green space characterizes the campus-like area that covers part of Scarborough Town Centre and the high-rise residential cluster found in Mississauga City Centre, which adheres to the tower-in-the-park formula. Green space occupies 42.4 per cent of the surface of Scarborough Town Centre and 38.7 per cent of Mississauga City Centre. The Civic Centre of the Mississauga City Centre also stands out within the two suburban nodes. It is characterized by a small amount of surface or decked parking, since most of it is underground, and by the amount of space devoted to plazas. Despite effort to de-emphasize the presence of vehicles and create plentiful space for pedestrians, the civic centre lacks the animation that mixed uses and street façades bring. The land use statistics of the other two nodes, Yonge-Eglinton and North York Centre, tend to fall between the extremes of downtown Toronto on the one hand, and of Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre, on the other. The building coverage of the Yonge-Eglinton node is higher than that of North York Centre, as is the proportion of land taken by parking. Green space coverage is identical in these two nodes, but more space is given to sidewalks in the Yonge- Eglinton node and more to plazas in North York Centre. (The space devoted to the plaza category in North York Centre is largely concentrated in a large central square.) There are also more construction sites in the rapidly growing North York Centre than in the more stable Yonge-Eglinton node. Finally, a higher presence of façades on the two main streets of the Yonge-Eglinton node (Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue) than on Yonge Street in North York Centre indicates a stronger inner-city character. Downtown Oakville and downtown Kitchener present some similarities in the proportions of space taken by their land uses. The substantial differences in their 15 In light of this explanation of differences in suburban land uses, it is tempting to attribute the greater similitude that exists between the land uses of downtown districts to a relative consistency in inner-city environments, which would account for their high spatial connectivity. Although such consistency may explain some of the data in Table 15, it is important to remember that these districts were selected on the basis of common traits: their strong retail orientation and their walkingconducive environment.

84 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 76 economic fortunes are not reflected in land use statistics, with the possible exception of a lesser presence of façades on downtown Kitchener s King Street than on downtown Oakville s Lakeshore Road. The poor economic performance of downtown Kitchener is responsible for the deterioration, demolition, and nonreplacement of buildings on the main street. A number of measurements from these two downtowns are in the middle range among our study areas. This finding can be attributed to the lower density of the built environment and the presence of larger amounts of surface parking in the two small downtowns, which have lower land values than in downtown Toronto. Travel patterns Trips into the study areas Table 16 presents modal shares for trips with destinations within the study areas. These trips may originate inside or outside these areas. A striking finding is the correspondence between the modal shares of study areas and the well-documented decline in public transit patronage (and corresponding increase in automobile shares) from the centre to the periphery of the Greater Toronto Area (Crowley and Dalton, 1998; McLeod, 1999: 8; Miller, Dalton and Briggs, 1998). This tendency is illustrated by differences in the modal shares of the Yonge-Eglinton node and North York Centre, both of which are on the Yonge subway line and thus enjoy similar levels of transit service. While 32.6 per cent of the trips to a Yonge- Eglinton destination rely on public transit, the equivalent proportion for North York Centre is 22.8 per cent. The reverse relationship between the proportion of public transit trips and the distance of study areas from downtown Toronto can be linked to transportation conditions in the areas surrounding these nodes. The availability of different modes of transportation within their catchment zones and the extent to which the built environment of these zones (density and mixture of uses) is conducive to transit use and walking are mirrored in modal shares recorded for trips to study areas. We can conclude that conditions outside the study areas have more influence on the modal split of trips to these areas than conditions prevailing within their boundaries. The modal choice for people travelling to a destination within the study areas is largely influenced by transportation options at the point of origin. Variations in the availability of free parking also account for differences in modal shares. The effect of parking costs is particularly noticeable in the four nodes, where it adds to the impact of public transit levels. As in downtown Toronto, there is a virtual absence of free parking in Yonge-Eglinton and North York Centre, although parking rates there tend to be lower than in downtown Toronto. In contrast, free parking is plentiful around Scarborough Town Centre and Mississauga City Centre.

85 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 77 Table 16: Per cent modal shares of all trips with destinations in study areas, in their respective urban zone or municipality and in two business parks, and ratios of study area shares relative to those of their urban zone or municipality Auto Driver Auto Passenger Public Transit Walking Cycling Other Downtown Toronto 35.5% 7.9% 46.6% 8.9% 2.3% 1.9% Inner City 43.2% 1.6% 33.6% 8.5% 2.3% 1.7% Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Yonge-Eglinton 47.5% 1.4% 32.6% 6.7%.9% 1.9% Inner City 43.2% 1.6% 33.6% 8.5% 2.3% 1.7% Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre 58.% 13.4% 22.8% 4.3%.7%.7% City of North York 61.5% 15.4% 16.9% 4.8%.4% 1.% Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre 58.2% 17.3% 18.9% 4.6%.2%.8% City of Scarborough 6.9% 17.2% 15.1% 5.3%.3% 1.1% Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre 67.3% 17.8% 9.5% 3.9%.1% 1.3% City of Mississauga 7.1% 16.% 6.3% 4.9%.3% 2.4% Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville 79.8% 15.1% 3.1%.6%.3% 1.2% Town of Oakville 73.1% 16.% 3.8% 3.8%.5% 2.7% Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville Downtown Kitchener 81.1% 12.6% 4.6% 1.1%.6% N.A. Waterloo Region 68.8% 17.1% 3.4% 7.8%.7% 2.% Ratio: Downtown / Waterloo Region N.A. Yonge Street Corridor 5.6% 1.9% 28.6% 6.9% 1.1% 1.8% Inner City 43.2% 1.6% 33.6% 8.5% 2.3% 1.7% Ratio: Yonge Street Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 64.3% 16.9% 9.1% 7.1%.3% 2.3% City of Mississauga 7.1% 16.% 6.3% 4.9%.3% 2.4% Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / City of Mississauga Business Park, Highway 44, North East of Steele 76.% 15.4% 5.1% 1.4%.2% 1.9% Business Park, Highway 41 South of Pearson Airport 8.2% 13.9% 4.1%.3%.1% 1.3% Source: 21 Transportation Tomorrow Survey. Downtown Kitchener is an exception to the tendency for transit use to decline as distance from downtown Toronto increases. Transit modal split in downtown Kitchener is slightly higher than it is in downtown Oakville (4.6 vs. 3.1 per cent). As a metropolitan region in its own right, the Kitchener CMA (which corresponds broadly to the administrative boundaries of Waterloo Region) reproduces to some extent the transit use gradients observed in the Toronto CMA; that is, downtown

86 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 78 Kitchener has a higher transit modal share than the metropolitan region as a whole. But transit use peaks and metropolitan-wide shares are considerably lower in Waterloo Region than they are in Toronto CMA, although not below those in Toronto s outer suburbs. Despite the varied land use patterns and the transportation conditions of their surroundings, public transit modal shares of trips to places within the study areas generally exceed those of trips to destinations elsewhere in the surrounding urban zone or municipality of these areas. No doubt, high-density clusters of mixed activities are associated with higher levels of transit use than those of surrounding areas. However, it does not mean that study areas display high transit modal shares. For Mississauga City Centre and the Mississauga East corridor, the transit modal splits are 9.5 and 9.1 per cent, respectively, well above the Mississauga average of 6.3 per cent, but hardly impressive in themselves. The two study areas where public transit modal shares score below the average for their urban region or municipality are the Yonge Street corridor and downtown Oakville. In the first case, this is partly due to an elevation of inner-city averages by the heavy dependence of downtown-bound trips on public transit. In downtown Oakville, one explanation is the attraction of this district for people from outside the downtown and surrounding neighbourhoods. Differences in walking follow a different logic. 16 Walking modal shares in the study areas tend to be lower than those of their respective urban zone or municipality. Given the TTS methodology, and the scarcity of schools in the study areas, this finding is likely due to a dearth of trips to these areas for educational purposes. The juxtaposition of employment and housing does not generate sufficient numbers of people walking to work to compensate for the lack of students walking to school. Only in downtown Toronto and the Mississauga East corridor do walking levels exceed those of the surrounding urban zone or municipality. In the first case, this is due to the presence of many residential units in the downtown, which encourages walking to workplaces and educational establishments (including two universities). In the Mississauga East corridor, the proximity of Mississauga City Centre employment and a scattering of schools within a high-density suburban-like layout explain walking levels that are higher than the average for the municipality. The reverse correlation between public transit shares and distance from the core is not true of walking. Walking appears to be more sensitive to the presence of employment and schools and the morphology of study areas than to an area s location within the region. The study areas that provide an environment hospitable to pedestrians (downtown Toronto, Yonge-Eglinton, and the Yonge Street 16 Note that the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, from which our transportation statistics originate, only records walking (and cycling) journeys that have work or education as a destination or origin.

87 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 79 corridor) register relatively high walking shares. Those that are less well-adapted to the needs of pedestrians (North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre) have lower walking modal splits. There are exceptions. We have discussed why the walking share is relatively high in the Mississauga East corridor. Circumstances are different in downtown Oakville and downtown Kitchener. Despite a layout and design that appear to be conducive to walking, these sectors register the lowest walking modal shares among our study areas, due to the absence of schools and relative lack of employment opportunities (compared to the other study areas) in downtown Oakville. Table 16 suggests an absence of walking-based connectivity between downtown Kitchener employment and nearby residential neighbourhoods. There is another explanation for variations in levels of transit use and walking. The literature has identified the critical role of self-selection of individuals according to values and life-style preferences in accounting for high transit use and walking in certain areas (see Cao, Mokhtarian and Handy, 26; Choo and Mokhtarian, 24). According to this view, individuals inclined to rely on transit and walking are attracted to sectors with good public transit services and a pedestrian-friendly environment. Still, one must keep in mind that for such preferences to be actualized, transit- and pedestrian-friendly urban environments must be in place. Overall, the study areas are not characterized by high levels of transit use and walking. Walking generally lags behind the averages for urban zone or municipality, and in the outer suburbs, transit modal shares fail to reach 1 per cent. In all the study areas, with the exception of downtown Toronto, public transit modal shares are considerably lower than automobile driver shares. The picture changes, however, when the study areas are compared with suburban business parks. In the two business parks selected for comparative purposes, walking is nearly non-existent and the public transit modal share is about half that of the lowest share recorded in the study areas, except for downtown Oakville and downtown Kitchener. Trips out of the study areas Table 17 shows the modal split of home-based trips made by residents of the study areas. As in the previous table, transit use declines as distance from the core rises. There is, however, a major difference between the two tables. Home-based trips generated within study areas are much more reliant on walking than trips into these areas. In Yonge-Eglinton, North York Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, Mississauga City Centre, downtown Oakville, and downtown Kitchener, walking modal shares are approximately twice as high as those shown in Table 16. The discrepancy between the two tables walking shares is most pronounced in downtown Toronto. Home-based trips originating from this sector are three times more likely to involve walking than trips to a downtown Toronto destination. In all cases, with the exception of downtown Toronto, high walking levels resulted in reduced auto driver shares compared to those of Table 16. In downtown Toronto, it is transit use that is most affected by the walking modal share. The

88 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 8 Table 17: Per cent modal shares of home-based trips of residents from study areas and their respective urban zone or municipality, and ratios of study area shares relative to those of their urban zone or municipality Auto Driver Auto Passenger findings suggest an adaptation of the travel patterns of residents to the mixed-use nature of the study areas. A higher reliance on walking for study area residents relative to people coming from outside the study areas is accounted for by proximity to workplaces and the presence of pedestrian-friendly environments. Public Transit Walking Cycling Other Downtown Toronto 22.3% 6.9% 27.8% 35.6% 3.6% 3.9% Inner City 4.8% 1.6% 3.9% 12.% 3.3% 2.3% Ratio: Downtown Toronto / Inner City Yonge-Eglinton 4.9% 9.3% 33.1% 13.%.9% 2.8% Inner City 4.8% 1.6% 3.9% 12.% 3.3% 2.3% Ratio: Yonge-Eglinton / Inner City North York Centre 5.2% 15.% 24.3% 8.5% 1.1%.8% City of North York 56.2% 16.5% 18.5% 7.%.5% 1.1% Ratio: North York Centre / North York Scarborough Town Centre 51.9% 17.7% 17.9% 1.9%.1% 1.3% City of Scarborough 57.3% 17.9% 16.5% 6.5%.4% 1.3% Ratio: Scarborough Town Centre / Scarborough Mississauga City Centre 59.8% 18.2% 12.% 7.3%.2% 2.5% City of Mississauga 66.5% 17.1% 7.1% 6.2%.3% 2.7% Ratio: Mississauga City Centre / Mississauga Downtown Oakville 78.2% 9.% 1.2% 1.3% N.A. 1.3% Town of Oakville 7.1% 16.7% 4.3% 4.8%.7% 3.3% Ratio: Downtown Oakville / Oakville N.A..39 Downtown Kitchener 68.7% 28.1% N.A. 3.2% N.A. N.A. Waterloo Region 65.4% 17.% 3.3% 11.% 1.% 2.3% Ratio: Downtown / Waterloo Region N.A..29 N.A. N.A. Yonge Street Corridor 48.9% 1.6% 25.6% 11.2% 1.4% 2.3% Inner City 4.8% 1.6% 3.9% 12.% 3.3% 2.3% Ratio: Yonge Street Corridor / Inner City Mississauga East Corridor 6.7% 17.2% 1.3% 9.1%.3% 2.4% City of Mississauga 66.5% 17.1% 7.1% 6.2%.3% 2.7% Ratio: Mississauga East Corridor / City of Mississauga Source: 21 Transportation Tomorrow Survey.

89 The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe part 2 81 Journeys to work Table 18 focuses on work-bound trips made by residents of the study areas. 17 As in most metropolitan regions, reliance on public transit for work trips is higher than it is for all trips (the previous tables did not distinguish different trip purposes). The same goes for walking modal shares. The only exception is the Mississauga East corridor, which contains little employment, but several schools. The residents of downtown Toronto rely heavily on walking for commuting, and their walking registers the highest of all modal shares. Four of the other study areas have walking modal splits for commuting between 9.9 and 16.1 per cent: Yonge-Eglinton, downtown Oakville, downtown Kitchener, and the Yonge Street Corridor. Mississauga City Centre and especially Scarborough Town Centre lag far behind. Trip distance Table 19 indicates the average distance of trips to the different study areas. Trip length is calculated as a straight line between origin and destination. One group of study areas stands out: downtown Toronto and the two expresswayoriented business parks, which register trip lengths that exceed those of the other study areas. We can infer from this finding that employment in these three study areas is more oriented towards the entire metropolitan region than is the case in the other areas, which have a more local focus (see maps in Appendix D). For maps showing the origins of work and non-work trips to the study areas, see Appendix D. The all trips category presents the largest discrepancy in trip distance. There is a 65 per cent difference in the length of trips to the Yonge Street corridor and those to downtown Toronto. As a group, nodes register trip lengths below those of the three highest-scoring districts and higher proportions of trips originating from within a 6-km radius. The business parks record the lowest proportion of trips of 6 km or less. These findings indicate an interaction with local catchment areas that is important in downtown Kitchener, the Yonge Street corridor, the Mississauga East corridor, the Yonge-Eglinton node, downtown Oakville, Scarborough Town Centre, and Mississauga City Centre. Reliance on the local trade area is least pronounced in the two business parks and in downtown Toronto. North York Centre is also among the study areas with the lowest percentage of trips that are 6 km or less. As Table 19 shows, work trips are longer on average than those in the non-work category, which includes trips for the purpose of shopping, education, and childcare. This finding suggests an explanation for differences among the study areas related to distances in the all trips category. With the exception of downtown Kitchener, which is in a largely self-contained, medium-sized metropolitan region, areas that register the longest trips are also the ones with the highest proportions 17 These statistics come from a different data base from those presented in the two previous tables. Data for work journeys are from the 21 census long-form questionnaire, which was distributed to 2 per cent of households, a much larger sample than the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, the source of the data used in Tables 15 and 16.